Animal magic transformed our turnover to £1.5m a year

UK’s leading animal handling company began in a greenhouse in Larbert

IN this week’s SME Focus we hear from a woman who has developed a UK business out of a venture she started in an empty greenhouse in the Central Belt. Name: Diane Mathison. Age: 52. What is your business called? ZooLab Ltd. Where is it based? Larbert, although we have national UK coverage. What services does it offer? We are the UK’s leading animal handling and lifelong learning company, providing innovative educational and entertainment services to a variety of sectors. Whom does it sell to? We work with schools, care homes, companies and organisations like the BBC, Endemol and Center Parcs throughout the UK to help them realise their training and learning objectives. We also help high-street names Tesco, Holland & Barrett and Specsavers to deliver community outreach programmes, and we work with individuals, companies and organisations on events ranging from birthdays to corporate entertainment and team-building. We have just launched The Jungle Room, Falkirk’s newest visitor attraction, which aims to bring the rainforest experience to the heart of Scotland. From this base people can book to take part in animal handling sessions, storytelling sessions and craft workshops. What is its turnover? £1.5 million plus. How many employees? 55. When was it formed? I launched the business in 1996, with my then husband Andrew Stephenson. Why did you take the plunge? We saw a gap in the market to offer animal handling sessions to the education sector to help schools achieve learning outcomes. Email: mark.williamson@theherald.co.uk Telephone: 0131 240 0282 What were you doing before you took the plunge? We are very entrepreneurial, so after running a pet store at Torwood Garden Centre, Larbert, we converted an empty greenhouse into Butterfly World in Freeport Leisure Village, West Calder. Running the venue highlighted a desire for animal handling sessions, particularly in schools looking to use the experience to educate children and highlight conservation, science, the natural world around them as well as healthy eating and even history! Building on our experience and using our understanding of animal handling, we launched ZooLab 20 years ago. Since then we have expanded. We now have 35 rangers on the road who provide animal handling sessions throughout the UK. Our rangers are highly trained, with the majority qualified zoologists, scientists or individuals who have worked within education. How did you raise the start-up funding? Savings and help from family at the very start in 1987. We also secured a small grant from a graduate enterprise scheme. What was your biggest break? Realising in the late 1990s that we could be successful visiting schools with our animals rather than them coming to visit us. What was your worst moment? Too many to mention that involved worrying about paying wages and bills. The other major one was when the recession hit and budgets started to tighten. We hit a plateau with our sales, as educational outlets have been predominantly our main customers and they had to tighten their belts. It was soul destroying as we were turning over £1m but spending everything we had to keep going. That’s why we approached Business Gateway Falkirk. Our adviser’s help made us take a good hard look at ourselves and the business. Since then we’ve systematically reviewed, adapted and improved our operations, using advice given on sales, finance and marketing and costs to push the business forward. Costs have been driven down and sales have increased by 30 per cent in the past year. What do you most enjoy about running the business? For me, what is really great, is the fact we work with people of all ages and backgrounds; it’s the range of our work and the different people we meet that inspire me. What do you least enjoy? In an ideal world spending the whole day working with our animals and clients would be perfect instead of doing the administration and paperwork associated to the business. That said, I know how vital it is! What are your ambitions for the firm? To continue to build on our reputation as the UK’s leading animal handling and lifelong learning business. I want to extend the reach of ZooLab and make it a ‘national brand’. What are your five top priorities? 1. To make ZooLab a widely recognised national brand and a household name. 2. To sustain growth within the education sector and keep market leader position. 3. To develop long-term partnerships with key corporate clients. 4. To make a difference with global and local conservation efforts. 5. To open a chain of ZooLab Jungle Rooms throughout the UK within the next 10 years. This will help us create jobs and put ZooLab firmly on the conservation map. What could the Westminster and/or Scottish governments do that would help? A reduction in VAT and corporation tax would be a huge step forward and make businesses more competitive.

As a whole, ZooLab has benefited greatly from government support. However, we would always welcome more advice in relation to raising investment for growth. This would allow us to raise the kind of finance we need to fully pursue opportunities.

Gaining access to expert guidance in areas involving sales, HR, marketing and finance has been integral to the growth of the business.

There are also other areas where we would benefit from financial support that would allow us to bring in additional, specific expertise. What was the most valuable lesson that you learned? There is always a way to do something – it just takes thought. How do you relax? Hang out with my family and let off steam every now and again, as well as gardening, birdwatching and going to gigs and festivals. INEOS chief executive Jim Ratcliffe has told The Sunday Times why he has returned to the UK from exile in Switerland, and revealed plans to resurrect the iconic Land Rover Discovery.

“As of May 1, I’m a tax resident here [in London]”, said Mr Ratcliffe, who is estimated to be worth more than £3.2 billion. “It’s mainly for business reasons. There’s a lot going on here.”

One thing going on is Mr Ratcliffe’s plan to bring a version of the Discovery back to the world’s roads after it was scrapped by Jaguar Land Rover earlier this year.

“In an ideal world we’d build a new plant in the north, near a port,” he told the paper.

He added that the plan would only come to fruition if it worked economically, but he had held talks with Jaguar Land Rover chief executive Ralph Speth, who has his own plans to bring the vehicle back with a modern twist.

“We won’t be in conflict with them. They’re going for the mass market,” said Mr Ratcliffe, whose vision is to produce around 10,00020,000 Defenders.

An activist hedge fund run by Sir Chris Hohn is building a stake in brewing giant SAB Miller, The Sunday Times reported. The move is piling pressure onto the group to revise terms of its sale to AB InBev – which is currently awaiting regulatory approval.

Mr Hohn is thought to be behind The Children’s Investment Fund, which has built up a stake of around one per cent in SAB Miller though derivatives, meaning it does not appear on the shareholder register.

The Observer reported on the “life altering” Pokémon Go game and how it has impacted businesses situated near one of the augmented reality game’s hotspots.

It quoted business owners in San Francisco who had seen crowds of gamers gathering outside their premises. Some saw opportunity to bring in custom, while others suspected regulars would be driven away.

Bankers from RBS and Lloyds competed against each other for a trophy labelled ‘Libor Legend’, reported The Sunday Times. The team would attempt to most accurately guess the Libor interbank lending rate on any given day. The winner would receive the trophy, a court heard. Monday: Gooch & Housego PLC 3.30p, Mission Marketing Group PLC 0.90p, Vislink PLC (New Co.) 1.50p Wednesday: Hargreave Hale AIM VCT 2 PLC 4p, Oxford Technology Venture Capital Trust PLC 1.30p, Scottish Investment Trust PLC 5.25p Thursday: DCC PLC 64.18p, Home Retail Group PLC 2.80p, Liontrust Asset Management PLC 9p, MS International PLC 6.50p Friday: Alpha Real Trust Ltd. 0.60p, Amati VCT 2 PLC (New Co.) 3.50p, Aurora Investment Trust PLC 1p, Blackrock Commodities Income Investment Trust PLC 1.50p, Blackrock Income Strategies Trust PLC 1.635p, Capital Gearing Trust PLC 20p, Castings PLC 30p, ICAP PLC 15.40p, ICG-Longbow Senior Secured Property Debt Investments Ltd. 1.50p, JP Morgan Income & Capital Trust PLC 2.30p, Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust PLC 0.90p, NextEnergy Solar Fund Ltd. 3.125p, Northern Investors Co. PLC 24p, Northern 2 VCT PLC 8.50p, Octopus AIM VCT PLC 2.50p, One Media iP Group PLC 0.071p, Paragon Group of Companies PLC 4.30p, Premier Technical Services Group PLC 0.54p, Real Estate Credit Investments PCC Ltd. 3.50p, RWS Holdings PLC 1.15p, Severn Trent PLC 48.40p, Sprue Aegis PLC 5.50p, Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust PLC 8.25p, Tex Holdings PLC 5p, 3i Group PLC 16p, Urban & Civic PLC 1.10p, Wynnstay Properties PLC 8.20p, Zytronic PLC 3.45p