Tobi’s friends and family say he’s cursed with Ambition, afflicted with initiative, dammed by an unquenchable drive for success… and more!
But that’s not his fault, he was merely born with and molded by his father’s highly successful entrepreneurial flair and zest for concept creation.Today Tobi is the CEO and Founder of Pup-Pee Solutions, a thriving Pet Product Manufacturing business that has expanded into eighty-four regions of the world and is continuing to expand. In a nutshell he is a self confessed Go-Getter and Entrepreneur who thrives on turning concepts into business.
For nearly 10 years his professional background was based around Health in both Personal and Corporate environments. However it was his wife Simone’s passion and appreciation for pets that propelled me into changing career paths and create the business that is Pup-Pee Solutions.
He has been successful in turning the passion into a global brand & thriving business and has taken the company’s channel of distribution to a significantly large retail base on a global scale.
Pup-Pee Solutions has been built from the ground up and Tobi attribute the success to simply getting up and out there to pursue an idea!
Q: Do you think the education you’ve invested in helped you on the road to success?
Certainly I think education certainly plays an important role however there are a lot of people that get bogged down in the theory and practically can’t make that jump to implementation.
Everything that a person does is part of the bigger picture whether they realize it at the time or not.
Sometimes this means you may not get out of your education what you first thought you would but hindsight is an amazing thing so embrace every opportunity or task that comes your way!
For example: I studied Podiatry and while I’m not practicing in that profession there are skills that I have obtained which have furthered me as a professional today.
Q: What was the “breaking point” in your career that made you decide to build your own brand?
While I continued to run a successful corporate and personal training business every hour away from there I was building Pup-Pee Solutions. I ultimately ran two jobs for a few years until I was able to take the business to a level that could support me without having to run a second job to simply just live.
Every sale I made was ploughed back into the business to fund growth and expansion plans.
I figured it was more sensible to draw income elsewhere than securing a line of credit, involving equity partners or debt within Pup-Pee. Certainly running hard at two jobs was not the easiest thing to do BUT I was hungry for the success and stayed motivated as I reached each milestone I set for the company and myself.
For me a product business appealed more so than a service business. In the Personal Training world I was paid for the time I worked with my clients and even if I was securing great fees for my service there were only so many hours in the day I could see them along with the fact that if I were to take a holiday or be unwell on a particular day I would have no income.
There was limited leverage and a ceiling on income. Very early on I knew if I wanted to create wealth I had to be able to make money even while asleep.
While my focus has never been on the dollars and cents, I’ve never wanted to be at the mercy of bills or not being able to be with my family to cover the costs of living. It was a decision I made early on when writing the game plan for Pup-Pee and something that still fuels my drive today!
Running your own business is very rewarding but it is important one understands the commitment to be successful. There are many theoretical approaches but there is no substitute to simply getting out there and having a go.
Q: What were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome to get to where you are now? How do you overcome failure?
At every juncture in this business there have been obstacles.
- Believing in what you’re doing – despite negative comments and people around you saying “it’ll never sell”
- Funding – start up & growth
- Employees – finding like minded people that you can afford
- Managing employees / suppliers and everyone’s expectation!
- Time Out – when you live, eat and breath your business – its often hard to escape for personal time
- Quality Control and Supplier Standards – while we profess to be the best, manufactured from the best materials its important everyone through the supply chain is on the same page!
- Demands and Needs – these never stop and they come from everywhere!
Understanding what I was setting out to do in its entirety meant understanding and preparing for the worst. There are many traps and paths young professionals take which leads them to no mans land!
For me, understanding this has lead me to building a team of experience “been there / done that” professionals from all facets of business and listen and learn from their experiences in order to prevent making the same mistakes or heading off in the wrong direction!
This has ultimately limited my mistakes and increased our success moving us down the path quicker. Still there have been a few errors here and there but nothing significant thanks to my support team!
Q: How do you measure success?
Everyone measures this differently – personally its relative to the goals I’ve set myself.
Q: What is one advice that you can offer to your readers?
“Activities Lead To Results” – you want it, go get it!
Surround yourself with knowledgeable people that have been there and done it before – this will limit your risk. Don’t bet the whole farm day one, build up to it – slow and steady wins the race.
Q: What do you do for fun?
Family is my #1 – spending time with them (my wife and two dogs) is my first port of call every time.
Beyond that its Basketball, surfing, wakeboarding, snowboarding and the Apple Store!!!!
Q: What is your favorite 1) gadget(s), 2) software(s), 3) website(s) that makes your life easier and more productive?
- Anything Apple Related
Apple TV
- I house everything in my drop box which allows me to have all of my files with me at all times (even on my phone). Should any of my devices go down, get stolen etc all I need is my username and pw and I’m up and running again.
- Netsuit in my opinion is the #1 cloud business management suite and is the backbone of our entire global operation. Given it’s in the cloud – this gives me all of our business information in real time no matter where I am in the world. Its also not local to a specific machine which allows us to unplug and scale quicker
- Microsoft Exchange is pretty important to our business and prevents double handling of emails / contacts and calendars across the company. Again, if a handset or computer blows out – the data is safe!
Web: www.thepetloo.com
FaceBook: Pet Loo
Twitter: @PetLoo
YouTube: petloousa
Linked In: tobiskovron
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