Profile: Oli Norman, serial entrepreneur with an eye for quality

A law graduate from the University of Edinburgh, the 35-year-old entrepreneur is the owner of Itison.com - recently confirmed by independent research as Scotland's biggest daily deals website.

He also owns DADA, a PR agency whose clients include Maclay Inns, Hilton Hotels and Rox the jeweller, and co-owns two of Glasgow's best-known bars, Sloans in the Argyll Arcade and Brel in the west end.

One of the longest-running bars on Ashton Lane, Brel is the most recent addition to the portfolio, having been acquired by Mr Norman and business partner Stephen White for £1 million last month.

Mr Norman, who was brought up in Glasgow's south side, said Brel became a favourite haunt when he moved to the west end, which came after spells in the US, the Far East and Edinburgh.

Now living with his partner, the TV presenter Cat Cubie, just yards from its front door, he said the chance to buy it was too good to pass up, partly because deals of this type rarely become available on the famous cobbled street.

He said: "I have all these amazing memories of Brel, and when the opportunity came up to purchase it [I seized it].

"I had always looked at it and always got frustrated because nobody was showing it the proper attention it needed to make it as successful as it should be."

Mr Norman has wasted no time putting his mark on the bar. Since he and Mr White got the keys, they have begun to put as much emphasis on food as the Belgian and other beer it is known for.

A new menu has just been launched with an accent on dishes for sharing, including langoustines and baked cheeses. A budget of £300,000 has been set aside for renovations, which will include work on its interior and sizeable beer garden, in addition to changes to the kitchen layout and some structural work.

Mr Norman has also elected to put prices up, a strategy that runs counter to the wider trend in the hospitality industry.

He said: "What I am seeing amongst bars and restaurants is that a lot people are going so price-led and promotion-led, which for me is just completely and utterly the wrong way to go. People still have money - they want quality. They maybe aren't going out as quickly but if you give them quality, they pay for it."

Mr Norman was given the confidence to acquire a second licensed premises after his experience at Sloans, which he took over in 2006, initially in partnership with Billy McAneney.

Until that point, his main dealings with the industry had been in orchestrating PR campaigns through DADA, which he established in 2002.

Mr Norman said: "We were accountable for launching the vast majority of good bars, restaurants and hotels in Glasgow and Edinburgh for a long period of time.

"You get possibly a degree of arrogance as a business person when you look at them and you get an immediate understanding of how to make a place busy and successful. Sloans was almost a wee challenge to myself to see if I could so it.

"DADA is an amazing company, but our product is ultimately something that is intangible. To have something you can physically experience and enjoy is brilliant."

Ultimately, it was a year before Sloans, which had lain empty for several months, was making consistent profits.

Mr White, who owns Blackfriars in Glasgow's Merchant City, came in as a joint partner in 2010.

Mr Norman had never worked with a partner before, but said Mr White is the ideal foil, bringing strengths on details, numbers and supplier relationships that complement his creative nous.

That creativity has spawned a host of theme nights and events at Sloans, some of which will soon be transplanted to Brel.

These include a cinema night, Eat Film, on Tuesdays, which debuted with a screening of gangster film Goodfellas served up with spaghetti and meatballs, to ceilidh nights on Fridays that sell out weeks in advance.

A street market is held on Saturday and Sunday mornings at Sloans, whose ballroom is an established wedding venue.

Mr Norman said the events are anchored on "sustainable marketing" - meaning that not only must they drive footfall and pay for themselves, but win new fans in the long term.

He said: "I have a very simple business philosophy - I call it 'unique invest'. Every single business has got to have something that is unique about it, and if you are in a competitive environment, [you ask yourself] how are you going to be better than the competition, and what is it you are going to shout about it?

"Sloans is inherently unique because the building is Glasgow's oldest bar and restaurant and the physical make-up of the building is unique, so we play very strongly to that and it drives a huge amount of tourists into Sloans."

Motivated though he is by his leisure interests, they form the smaller component of his business, which employs around 120 staff in total.

The big numbers are driven by Itison, the daily deals website he formed in August 2010. While the bars each turn over around £1 million, Itison turns over £15m and is continuing to grow.

The site now has more than half a million registered users, with as many as 700 more joining each day. It sells up to 50,000 vouchers per month, offering discounts on everything from meals and spa treatments to bungee jumps.

Itison has offices in Dundee, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow. Mr Norman hopes to add 30 further staff to its current 45 in the next 18 months on the back of securing a second Regional Selective Assistance grant.

He said Itison sets out its stall to be different from other daily deals sites, some of whom have been criticised by merchants for aggressive sales techniques.

Mr Norman said he has invested heavily in bespoke site software, giving merchants access to their own portal where they can mine data on how consumers are responding to their offers.

It can also spotlight problems, informing operators if they have an issue with their venue or a staff-training need.

Mr Norman asserted that the success of Itison, whose main competitors are Livingsocial and Groupon, stems from the fact it deals only with quality operators, which helps to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction.

Clients include five star hotels such as Blythswood Square in Glasgow, the Old Course and Fairmont hotels in St Andrews, and Domino's Pizza.

The site, which typically operates a 10% net profit margin, continues to evolve, too. Itison is now an events "curator", listing major happenings coming up and offering tickets for sale.

At present tickets are only available for events in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but Mr Norman said it is selling between 30,000 and 40,000 tickets per month.

It has been observed that daily deals is a model more suited to periods of economic downturn, but Mr Norman insisted the concept is here to stay.

That conviction is backed up, he said, by the expressions of interest he receives from bigger companies looking to acquire the site.

He said: "We have had lots of very large companies come and speak to us, but the time is not right. If I thought that daily deals was not going to be a business model that would be here in a few years' time I would have sold out. But I firmly believe it is part of consumer society, and daily deals play a very legitimate part in driving business."