“How Two Brothers Turned Their Struggling Family Business into a Multi-Million Dollar Business ($22M) in 24 Months” by Casey McPhalis

​One of the perks of working in a family business is that you have business experience passed down from generation to generation. That experience becomes the anchor to success in your business. And so when your business is starting to struggle, you begin to question everything you’ve been taught. There’s also the emotional tie you have with the business which makes it difficult to seek and embrace change. But that’s exactly what we did to turn our struggling family business into a multi-million dollar business.

McPhails is a Victorian based business that was founded by our parents Keith and Bev McPhail. Keith was a fourth-generation farmer who wanted to make his own mark on the world.

In the 1960s, they had bought a removalist company, and realized that many customers were leaving plenty of good quality furniture behind in the move, so Keith started storing it in a warehouse and auctioning it off at the end of each month. Keith started attending weekly auctions and adding some new furniture into the existing business and in 1969 McPhails was born.

When lockdowns hit Australia Mcphalis was struggling. We borrowed money to keep the business afloat, we mortgaged both of our houses and thought we would need to give up and go work on farms. However through our contacts, we reinvented the business by doing two simple things. We started to heavily use social media, especially Facebook while also changing our business model to a delivery business. With Facebook, we initially dedicated most of our effort to Facebook Marketplace and it quickly took off. We were getting so many orders, we were struggling to fulfill them — a great problem to have. We were driving trucks ourselves, selling furniture, running the website — we were on all time. I would be on Facebook until midnight talking to people and selling stuff. Many people assume Facebook Marketplace is for everyday people who want to offload their stuff but it’s a huge untapped channel for businesses. As the business has matured, we focus our efforts on paid advertising to reach a wider audience.

Another change we made was a tweak to our business model. We transformed a furniture business into a furniture business and delivery service. Where a lot of other furniture companies can take 16+ weeks to deliver, we did it in two weeks. Within a few weeks our turnover went from $50K a week to $250K a week, from 1 Hino truck to 12, a team of 4 to 30 employees and from one shed to renting all 22 available sheds in town. Since then, we’ve built a 8000 sq meter warehouse.

Our biggest takeaway is this — don’t underestimate the power of small changes to your business. Our warehouse and showroom are based in the city of Wangaratta, it’s an odd location for a furniture store and doesn’t attract tourists. And yet with social media and a good offering, we were able to see our business grow beyond our expectations.

Credit: Taylor McPhalis (Left); Casey McPhalis (Right)