I expect that at some stage someone in the management here will wake up to the fact that the company cannot afford to have at least 8 and possibly 10 or 11 territory managers sitting around doing nothings and will allow them to start signing up some new restaurants. After all that is their sole job here.
I've enough experience of sales to know that salesmen/women do not like spending too much time in training, nor do they like too much piggy-backing. They just want to get out in the field and start signing up their own restaurants - especially if there is any kind of salary enhancing bonus scheme attached to the salary.
Also the first rule of sales is if you are signing up customers don't whatever you do call back and ask them how they are getting on (with Big Dish). Leave well alone and sign up some more. Allowing a customer to back out of a deal is a beginner's mistake and a very drippy way of going on.
"what is the point of taking them off it" or alternatively "what is the point of talking them out of it".
Also should read:
"....but the management here appear to be totally unable to be flexible and adapt to this and are still gearing everything for September."
The last thing I want to be doing here is moaning. I have far more shares now and certainly far more cash invested here than I had before (that is before the rise in May) and yet it is just the same old Big Dish and the same old management.
For the T1 and T2 managers to stop signing up new restaurants and concentrate on account management appears to be the worst management decision I've ever come across. In case the management haven't noticed it they have managed to lose about 33% of the existing restaurants on the platform. Considering it doesn't cost the restaurants anything to leave their restaurants on the platform what is the point of talking them off it.
The bulk of the territory managers were recruited a month earlier than expected - probably as a result of an efficient job recruitment agency - but the management here were appear to be totally unable to be flexible and adapt to this and are still gearing everything for September.
It clearly works better for the towns and cities to be added first and then the restaurants added later but they can't get even get that into their thick heads and want to try and add them all in bulk. That was the way the Bournemouth restaurants were migrated from Table Pouncer but apart from that everything else of note has been added day by day and week by week.
Very poor management.
"The directors would have to RNS any shares sells or purchases. i do not recall seeing any of these."
Yes, I agree but nothing seems to be done properly with this company. Their admin and shareholder info is weak even by AIM standards - and yet they are not AIM they are Main Market listed.
There is no major shareholder info on the website. There was no info about who took the placing of over 10% of the shares and no subsequent TR1. Most main market companies have to issue a prospectus when they raise cash - not this lot though. Maybe that is because they are registered in Jersey but I do not know for sure. Every other company that had SVS Securities as a Joint Broker issued an RNS to say they were no longer joint brokers - not this lot though. Justin Boer was a director when the company floated and was assigned a whopping 39,000,000 shares (generous by anyone's standards) and yet he resigned as a director 6 months later. Does that mean he forfeits any of his shares for resigning before anything has happened - I doubt it whatever the rules may be. On 30th May Big Dish in the RNS of that date claimed "They were fully funded to execute the nationwide roll-out" and that there was not need for a placing and then the annual report reveals that on 31st March 2019 there was £43,000 in the kitty. It also says in the report under "Events after the Reporting Period on Page 40 that the company sold 4,555,867 treasury shares. It doesn't say what price these treasury shares were sold at and the shareholders were never aware that there even were any treasury shares. On page 39 it mysteriously says that as of 31st March 2019 the company had 13,555,867 treasury shares. Treasury shares can be sold to pay the bills etc but it would be nice if the shareholders knew where exactly they have come from. There is a list of shares in issue on Page 15 of the IPO and it does not mention or give any existence to any Treasury Shares.
Justin Boer according to the IPO documentation held 39,000,000 shares and yet according to the "Substantial Shareholders" info on page 39 of the Annual Report he no longer holds any. Has he forfeiting them by resigning or sold them or just got hidden up his you know where.
Also I don't know if anyone has tried but if you try and copy anything from the Annual Report it is all encrypted and cannot be pasted. I've never come across that before.
What is certain is that the directors are living off something and it certainly isn't historical profits from Big Dish Asia which we can see from the recent accounts ran up expenses of around £400,000 but had revenue of only £10,000. I can assure you they will have nothing to live off except their salaries and if their salaries are paid in shares then they must be selling some of them.
I suppose that it is just as well that the directors didn't take a salary as otherwise the cash would have run out at least 3 months earlier.
I don't think there is any question of the directors being heroes here or going without. Over 11 million share were issued in June to make up for the lack of salary though no mention was made as to what price they were issued at or if they were any restrictions on them or not. These could even be the large sells that started to appear around the sub 4p level when no-one else would have been selling with the nationwide roll-out imminent.
I think that this will need some positive news by way of RNS before it will start to move back up and hold the rises. Otherwise this has just bounced off a very silly low brought about by a lack of newsflow.
All shares are the same - no news and down they go.
Big Dish stopped signing new restaurants around the first week of June and the share price has been going down ever since. When will they ever learn?
Prior to that, during April and May, they had been adding new locations and outlets regularly and the share price was moving up nicely.
Now it is time to get back to the basics and to get these managers signing up new restaurants once again.
It's just nonsense to give any target figures for September. They haven't managed to hit any of their targets as yet and they are usually miles adrift. What's going to change.
They just want to add the new towns and cities that the new and existing territory managers are going to target first and then add them on as they sign up. That is what has worked before and it will continue to work. The only time they added restaurants in bulk was when they transferred the Bournemouth outlets from Table Pouncer to Big Dish.
The managers want to see the restaurants they just signed up go live every day, the restaurants themselves need to go live straight away and the shareholders want to see some progress being made.
I was the one person on this board who said that Big Dish Asia was a flop and never took off while others here were saying how successful it was and how it was going to be sold for a lot of money, etc, etc. That we can see is never going to happen - in fact, the sooner it's all closed down the better as it is bleeding hundreds of thousands of $'s a year.
Now they actually have an opportunity to create a successful business here in the UK but to do so they need to get a move on and get these bloody restaurants signed up to the platform. This is not the time to sit around doing nothing.
If they get the independent restaurants signed up pronto then I think you'll find the chains will come on board quite quickly and easily and also that the user numbers will mysteriously pick up as word of mouth spreads and as they get some valuable press coverage, etc.
Do I think they need brand ambassadors and to be sponsoring award ceremonies - certainly not at this early stage. That is just more poor management decisions in my opinion.
And it didn't say if it was the beginning of September or the end. I'd hate to wait another 6 weeks for any new signings.
Of course the share price is going up. It was bashed to death after those very poor results and now can only go back up. The sooner it gets to 5p the better.
Yes, I know how salesmen work only too well. They will work like nutcases to hit their targets and bonuses. They will leave home at the crack of dawn and work all day and half the night to hit their figures.
If the company are so they say signing up restaurants but not letting them go live then they are doing this the wrong way round. This works much better when the towns/cities are live on the platform and the restaurants are then added. Also the new salespersons need to see their signed restaurants go live straight away on the platform. That is the way to get the very next one signed up.
Salesmen live on third-party stories - they need to show the potential new customers that they have signed up a competitor restaurant a few blocks away. Then the fear of missing out kicks in and the second restaurants joins in. That's how it works.
No, I said they were doing nothing actually.
You may have been a broker for 25 years. Fine, as far as I can see brokers have one purpose in life and that is to raise funds for listed companies.
I happen to have plenty of sales experience and I know exactly how salespersons live, work and operate. In a company the size of Big Dish the managers are either busy signing new restaurants or doing nothing. There isn't anything else in between.
Well personally I am a bit disappointed. The roll-out was set for September, with the new managers tentatively set to be in place by them. However, instead, most of the managers were surprisingly recruited and on the payroll by early August. That to me would represent an opportunity to bring everything forward by one month and have the roll-out commence in August but instead it looks as if Big Dish are quite happy to have all of these managers - 11 according to monty - fully paid and doing nothing for a month. That is not good business sense. Good business sense is remaining flexible.
Also it doesn't explain what the T1 and T2 managers are doing - unless it's been decided they need an extra month of training on top of the 2/3 months of doing nothing since the beginning of June which was the last time either of them actually added any restaurants to the platform.
I just keep thinking London - 3 managers - Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham - all of these massive cities with dozens of quality restaurants just waiting to be signed to the platform.
12 managers aiming for 20 restaurants per month - which should be quite doable though I expect they will announce some targets soon or at least we can see what numbers the high achievers start to hit - is 240 per month.
And once the independent restaurants are added in big numbers I think the small and large chains will come on board very quickly.
Not as far as I know.
I think that the important part to watch will be new towns and cities coming on board in the areas where the new managers are starting. That's easy enough to count - there are 8 at the moment but that will soon double or more.
It shouldn't be long now before new locations start appearing on the App - and then it's up and up and up.
We already have been told the 3 London managers are already in place so that should be a great place to get the restaurant numbers moving up very quickly.