Mister eCommerce is the fifth business launched by David Grégoire, however it’s the first that embodies the young man’s eye-opening experience when visiting an inspiring company in December of 2015.
What could entice the Vice President of Technology for the largest travel agency in Quebec to quit his job? The ambition to manage his own business, of course! “I was always a businessman at heart,” admits David Grégoire. “I like taking risks, I like creating things. I needed to get back into the world of business.” In 2015, he quit his job (one that many would find enviable) at Voyages à rabais to focus on entrepreneurship.
Mister eCommerce is the fifth company that this trained mathematician has founded. There was a t-shirt company he started with a friend at the end of high school, a bed and breakfast that he ran for four years with his girlfriend, a company that built websites and a funeral services website.
The serial entrepreneur’s newest project has a very different structure than his previous companies and it’s the secret to his success.
The spark was so powerfully lit that David Grégoire originally thought of starting a company that would offer sales advice to other companies that wanted to improve their sales performance.
But that was before realizing that Mister eCommerce could fill a more particular niche.
“Traditional stores put all their inventory on shelves, but only put some of that inventory on virtual shelves in their online store. It’s a mistake,” explains the man who has worked in e-commerce since 2007.
The thing is, many businesses find it complicated to put their products online. To take pictures of each product, write descriptions, input sizes, prices, bar codes, manage the inventory… “It’s too hard, nobody wants to do it. So I told myself that I would specialize in something that nobody else was interested in doing,” explains David Grégoire.
His record: putting 1100 products from one store online in a single day. This impressive energy comes from the automization of processing methods that David Grégoire was able to design thanks to his technological knowledge. He also believes that the company’s rapid growth is due to its solid sales structure. The founder was alone when the company started six months ago, and now it has seven employees.
Generating leads, qualifying them, closing the sale: the three steps that have become an absolute obsession for David Grégoire, who used his technical skills to automate a large part of the business’s operations, which also reduced the need for human resources.
The team also uses a customer relationship management (CRM) software. Getting in touch with leads is really the most important step. All companies should use a CRM! That way, you’re sure that nothing falls through the cracks,” illustrates David Grégoire.
The more the sales process advances, the more important human interaction becomes. “We offer consulting services, so we have to add a human touch,” explains the entrepreneur whose business model also relies on repetition.
For him, the most important element remains prospecting and following-up with customers: “You have to appeal to the most people possible and do vigorous follow-ups. Having a well-oiled sales machine is more than half the work”.