When did things get serious?
By 2012 we had an explosion of growth. From 2011 to 2012 we grew by 700%. This can be attributed to building up a portfolio of customers, the market starting to know who we were, and experiential marketing in general becoming a more respected form of marketing, but something else gave us
an edge.
An ex-colleague from the UK, Pete Hutchings, was travelling and wanted to know if I could give him a job while he was in South Africa – he even joked that he’d work as a tea boy.
The great thing about a small company, and I hope it’s something we never lose, is that you don’t have a hierarchy. It was easy to bring him in and put him on a campaign. He knew the industry and he added value. And then he really made a difference to our growth prospects – he paid attention and he wasn’t shy to share his opinion.
He gave me real feedback on what he was seeing, and implementing the changes he suggested led to us winning big pitches against some of the biggest names in the industry.
My forté is new business – I’m an energetic networker and I know how to bring in business based on pitching ideas that suit a brand and its target market.
But my admin weakness meant we had no policies, no formalised ways of executing a campaign, no key managers in place, and we were relying on people with little to no experience to get the job done. When I look back now, it’s amazing how many bullets we dodged.
How did getting an outside perspective impact the business?
As soon as Pete started making suggestions, I realised how well we complemented each other, and I asked him to become my business partner.
He’s one of the top creative and strategic thinkers in our field in South Africa, and arguably internationally, and I knew we could really take the business to the next level together.
His first suggestion was to employ a key individual to take care of the execution of our ideas. I bring in the business and keep clients happy, Pete’s team comes up with ideas and keeps the formalities of the business in check, and Catherine Mavrocoleas (who is ex-Ogilvy) is in charge of the execution of ideas.
This transformed our growth prospects. 700% in year one of Pete joining us, and we’ve more than doubled our turnover year-on-year in the two years since.
What have been Pete’s other contributions to the business to date?
He insisted we were stabbing in the dark – I’d been comfortable with our organic growth, but it meant we weren’t following a strategic path – a lot of what we did was hit and miss. Along with our head of creative, he also implemented an internal brand building strategy. I think it’s normal for businesses to forget about their own marketing, particularly if that’s what they do for their clients.
It’s the old analogy of the cobbler’s son not having shoes. But when you’re busy and your focus is completely on your clients, and you’re lacking formal processes and policies within your own company, it’s easy to forget about the importance of internal and external brand building – which is fine, but you’ll never grow a truly large, sustainable business if that’s where you stay.
A good example is the profit-share model. It existed before Pete came along, but it wasn’t formalised the way it is today. If you have policies for everything, you can track what’s happening in the organisation, hold proper reviews, and reward high achievers.
This isn’t about a 13th cheque, it’s about encouraging a vested interest in the business amongst employees. If you go the extra mile, are proactive, tenacious, and punch above your weight, you’ll be rewarded. Last year 40% of our profit was paid out in bonuses to senior managers and employees. Everyone received a different percentage, but it kept our key performers engaged, and acts as a great retention tool.
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