Welcome to the next in our series of bite size chats with Business Leaders, brought to you by The FD Consultant.
We interview high achieving individuals who we believe everyone can learn from, and who bring insight into the many aspects of successfully growing a business.
Today we welcome David King, MD of Lbox Communications. Having joined the company in 2015 as Sales Director, David is now the Managing Director and has overseen a huge amount of growth in the organisation, including an acquisition last year. Exciting times lie ahead for this rapidly growing SME.
Hi David, please tell us about your business.
Lbox Communications is a fast turnaround print and delivery business, we focus on the construction, infrastructure and property sectors. We support them with their community engagement and resident notifications.
We recently acquired a direct mail business to increase our capacity expand into the advertising mail market. We try to put technology at the centre of everything we do, providing genuine solutions for our customers with an outstanding customer experience.
What are the key factors which have driven such impressive growth?
Primarily its our technology. We started out with a self-designed system which provided a nice solution but then we really listened to our customers and developed in line with their requests and requirements.
When we said we could achieve something we have always backed this up with our development. This has built us a lot of trust with our customers and as such we are referred a lot. It’s amazing what you can achieve if you just listen!
Supporting our technology we have a really strong team, they are a great mix of youth and experience, they hold each other accountable and demand the best for our clients. At times I wonder if they still need me. The recent acquisition has also increased our business size and strengthened our management team.
What makes you so passionate about what you do?
I’m not sure anyone can say they dreamed of growing up and working in print and postage, if it was up to me I’d be playing golf or football! That said I believe I have genuine passion for providing customers solutions that add value and allow them to be more efficient at what they do.
In a previous life I have sold services which are very much a commodity, I found it really difficult and not that enjoyable. It’s much more fulfilling when you can present solutions that people are genuinely excited about and it makes for longer lasting and stronger client relationships.
What do you view as your greatest achievement in this role to date?
As we have grown we have been able to develop a number of staff, supporting their careers and giving them the skills to continue to take on more responsibility, this is something I’m very proud of.
There have been so many achievements. I had no development or technology experience but now I know enough to get by. This, like many of our achievements, came about by learning as we went through the process. The willingness of the team to continue to change and drive forward again and again is probably the biggest achievement to date.
What are the biggest challenges your business faces?
At times, everywhere you look you can see challenges, I’m not sure that ever changes no matter if you are a small business or Apple. I’d say currently our main challenges are combining the cultures of two businesses and planning out what the next 5 years might look like.
Brexit has been really hard for us, we have struggled to get staff to work on the streets of London and our costs have gone up. On the flip side we were not effected by Covid in the way many other businesses were.
What one piece of advice would you give to those who want to achieve or sustain high growth in their businesses?
Try to operate within a niche. Offer that market a genuine solution, listen to their feedback and act on it. Put technology at the centre of your business and use it to solve customer problems and attack admin in your own organisation. Admin reduces staff morale and requires more people which will drive up costs; invest in a tech solution and you have it forever.
I’m a big listener to podcasts, in particular ‘How I built this’ with Guy Raz. where virtually all businesses interviewed improve their product market fit by going out and listening to their customers – Airbnb is a great example of this.
Website: www.lboxcomms.com