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Apprentice star with 3 businesses at 26 years old: How does she do it?

As a Celebrity Big Brother contestant and a seemingly permanent bikini-clad fixture in gossip columns, it’s easy to forget that it was Luisa Zissman’s impressive business achievements that initially thrust her into the limelight.

Here, we take a look at the four key tips behind the success of the 2013 The Apprentice runner up and how she successfully manages three businesses.

1. Make your own opportunities

Although she began work in a local estate agency at the age of sixteen in order to fund the upkeep of her horse before going on to work in an electronic data company, she quickly realised that she wasn’t happy having to work according to somebody else’s plan.

So, at 20, she started her own company, an internet-based electronics retailer. By using her initiative to capitalise on returned goods and ends-of-lines from businesses near to her home, Luisa made enough of a profit to begin planning her dream business.

2. Follow your passions

Before long, Luisa founded Dixie’s Cupcakery, a luxury cake shop in St. Albans. Catering for both passing trade and specialist orders, the shop soon became highly successful and fuelled a demand for cake-making and cake-decorating supplies among those who were delighted with the shop’s designs.

This led to the creation of The Baker Shop, which sources and provides a wide range of these goods, via the website, www.the-bakershop.co.uk. This business quickly became established, resulting in custom from over ninety countries and leading to the necessity to employ additional staff, bringing the total to thirty.

It was as a result of having been successful in these three businesses that Luisa was accepted onto The Apprentice.

3. Capitalise on your success

With a strong personality and innovative ideas, it was inevitable that Luisa would gain a great deal of attention through her appearance on such a popular show. Upon placing second to Leah Totton, she announced that she would soon be launching her latest venture, her own range of bakery and decoration equipment, which she named ‘Bakers Toolkit’ (controversially deciding not to insert an apostrophe).

This new business leans more towards the decoration side of cake production and includes lines such as moulds and rolling pins, as well as a number of edible products, including coloured icing and edible glitter. Bakers Toolkit products are now available all over the UK.

4. Use marketing to its full potential

Luisa’s early workplace experience in marketing has clearly coloured her approach to her own businesses; all three of her current enterprises are well-represented online, via their websites and through social media outlets. The businesses, to some extent, bolster each other, with Dixie’s Cupcakery both stocking and using Bakers Toolkit products, which the Baker Shop website also sells, creating additional advertising opportunities across Luisa’s entire range.

In the future, it is likely that all three businesses will expand and continue to feed each other, perhaps leading to instant brand recognition. With little Dixie already learning how to make and decorate cakes, it’s possible that the flourishing empire which was kick-started by reselling unwanted electronic goods could be around for generations to come.

By Matt Skinner, Managing Editor of BusinessesForSale.com, the market-leading directory of business opportunities from Dynamis. Matt manages content across all titles in the Dynamis stable, as well as being a regular contributor to various industry publications, including business magazines.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by BusinessesForSale .