Phil Kiernan own the Farmers Boy Inn, a country pub and restaurant in Gloucestershire, which is famous for its gourmet pies.
Phil has been in pub trade for 26 years! He first came across Nigel Botterill and the EC when a CD landed on his doorstep and, because he was snowed in at the time, Phil decided to watch it.
“Finding the EC has changed my whole life. 100%” says Phil “Not just the way I see things now but the whole way I feel about my business.”
A phone call from Jamie Oliver’s team…
Phil created a new business, Mad About Pies, and opened the doors to his online shop. His aim was to take The Farmers Boys famous gourmet pies and deliver them all over the UK.
Phil says that he felt he’d done everything he needed to do with Mad About Pies – his product was great – but he still had no customers. Not one.
He describes a shift that took place for him in an EC Mastermind meeting with Nigel and 8 other EC members that was the beginning of everything turning around. “I realised that I had to focus on getting customers” said Phil “and that everything else came after that. I left that meeting with a clear plan.
In fact, on the way home from the meeting he received a phone call from Jamie Oliver’s team who were putting together a series about pies and wanted to talk to him about it.
In the short time since his EC Mastermind experience, here is what Phil has achieved with his business:
- Mad About Pies now supplies local delis and farmers markets in Gloucestershire as well as Worcester Warriors Rugby club which is also a customer and Phil supplies around 1,000 pies per match
- Phil also supplies Cheltenham Town FC and many other major venues.
- BBC’s Countryfile’s presenter, Adam Hensen, is also a fan of Mad About Pies and he now stocks the range at Cotswold’s Farm Park
- His pies are now on the shelves of multiple national supermarkets
- The word certainly seems to be spreading, but that’s no surprise considering Mad About Pies was featured on TV, radio and also on the front page of all local newspapers in the space of a single week.
Staff have to do an hour’s marketing every day…
As if this wasn’t enough, Phil’s has a brand new website up and running which is already starting to bear fruit and he’s very active on social media using Facebook ads to drive traffic through to his landing pages where he can collect customer data and stay in touch. He uses videos to market the business on Facebook, too.
Each of Phil’s staff has their own Blackberry and they are expected to do an hour’s marketing each day… if they don’t, they don’t get to keep their Blackberries! This arrangement seems to be working well for everyone.
Phil uses his CRM for his email marketing and keeping in touch with his customers and prospects on a regular basis. He says “Anything Nigel tells me to implement, I implement… straight away!”
New pie factory…
Phil has just opened his new pie factory in the Forest of Dean so he’s able to take things to the next level and he already has franchisees ready to take Mad About Pies into London, South East Sussex and Surrey and Wales, too. Phil is showing no signs of slowing down as he has networking and speaking lined up.
