Each month Patten meets with the whole company and weekly he has meetings with the individual departments.
“We talk about major goals and things which have gone well and things which haven’t. We also do staff member of the month where the staff choose each other, peer recognition I think is important.”
Patten thinks the online retail industry will go through a consolidation period.
“On the internet there are only five or six places on the front page of Google, so there will be a couple of big players which will dominate the industry in this space.
“We see people come into the marketplace quite frequently now, but running a professional operation is expensive and only the ones which do a good job will continue.”
In his spare time Patten plays soccer for a local over 35s team.
“I would say the 90 minutes I spend playing soccer would be the only time during the week where I’ve forgotten about the business commitments.
“I’m constantly thinking about it, I’m not stressed in a negative way, but I always have ideas. One of the frustrations is there are never enough resources to do all of my ideas.”
Patten professes he’s “not a party animal”, but he does like to take holidays once a year.
He believes maintaining a work-life balance is important, because if something goes wrong in the business, you don’t want to have lost it all.
“I’ve seen some of the best businesses just go under and you need to know in your head you’re doing the right thing by your family.
“It’s very different when you have a kid, when I was younger it didn’t really matter, but by this age everyone has mortgages and houses to pay for. The reason you’re really doing it is for your family.”
Patten intends to open a third store in a new niche and become front of mind when people think of salon-quality beauty products.
“It’s really just to continue what we’re doing and become a number one and become front of mind. People know about Amazon, whether they buy from it or not – if you shop online and I ask if you’ve heard of Ry most people shake their head, but this can change,” he says.
For people thinking of opening an online store, Patten says to “empower yourself with knowledge”.
“Don’t believe other people’s advice, make sure you educate yourself on the decisions you’re making and don’t make them blind. Also make sure you know what the outcome will be of the decisions and have a reason for making it.
“It’s easy for people to give you advice, and you can be pulled in so many different directions. If you need to make a decision about SEO, learn about SEO. If you need to make a decision about advertising, learn about advertising.”
