Katharine Roseveare - FreshIdeas Events Mentee

Time is continuing to fly by...

2009-03-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

So... another 3 weeks down the line, what has been happening that's made the time pass so quickly?...

Numbers, numbers, numbers...

Well, I've been very tied up in discussions with our Finance Director, various people from the bank, and our senior management team - it's Year End, and what with looking at how our 6th year in business has gone, managing the intricacies of the cashflow with a couple of our clients slowing payments down to a halt and planning for next year, it's been a bit on the busy side! I never thought, when I graduated with a degree in English literature that I'd need to get to grips with the intricacies of accounting. The terminology has been a whole task in itself ('nominal ledgers', 'balancing journals', 'WIP accounts'...)and as I'm in the process of trying to sort out the technical blips in our accounting package for year end, I'm on a steep and mind bending learning curve.

Taking stock of our 6th year in business

Once again, Year 6 has seen us grow again - we've now increased our turnover every year since start up which has been great although the Year on Year growth hasn't reached the heady percentages of our first few years. Our difficulty is maintaining the profit margins we want when we have a pretty big office to upkeep and that ongoing issue of keeping staff here happy and motivated while keeping costs as tight as possible! Business: it's just a big juggling act and although it's a fun environment here, ultimately people always want higher salaries and bigger bonuses - if only we could be as generous as we'd like to be!

Supporting our very own in house singer

Speaking of motivation and people, I do think getting as involved in outside of work activities as much as possible is a good thing for directors of businesses - to keep in touch with what's going on. So last week I had great fun going along to a gig performed by our receptionist/office manager. Leila's background is in drama and music and she's desperate to break into the big time with her singing so often performs after work. A group of about 8 of us from the office went along to a little venue just off Regent's Street to cheer her on, support her and have a few drinks.

It was a good chance to get a bit of a feel for how people are responding to us having brought in a new Chairman (which has had quite a bit of press coverage in the marketing media) - although there's lots of positivity, there's definitely also a bit of suspicion regarding what value he'll add, ('is he all talk and no action?') but I think over the past few weeks Matthew has demonstrated that he really knows what he's doing and will be a big contributor to the business.

Discovering a completely different business environment

I had another new experience last week - having recently been invited to sit on the governing Council of University College London (my old uni) I attended my first Council meeting. It was a really interesting, stimulating and educational (unsurprisingly!) experience and made all the more enjoyable as my 3rd year tutor is still there, going strong and made a presentation for the council members on The Bloomsbury Project. I enjoy the opportunity to input into the university's strategic direction although I'm on a steep learning curve here too as while there are similarities with running a business like Intelligent Marketing, there are plenty of differences too - scale for one! But it's all part of my ongoing quest to ensure that I learn from other experiences - what I learn at UCL, can also be brought to bear at IM, and vice versa.

Away day Inspiration

Now a quick request for brilliant ideas please - we have our bi-annual Away Day scheduled for 1st May and I'm looking to get everyone out of the office and doing something fun. It needs to be a team-based activity that will get everyone excited and buzzing - and we're quite a competitive bunch, but - and here's the big but - we're 'credit crunching' it this time, so need to keep costs tight. There'll be about 25 of us in total - if you have any suggestions (and have made it this far down one of my epic blogs), let me know!

And finally...

...we bagged another award for our Lufthansa Breakfast campaign, winning the Direct Marketing category in the Travel Marketing Awards. Now we just need to make sure we leverage the wins and don't hide our successes 'under a bushel' as we so often end up doing! It's an opportunity to target the travel sector for new business, so I must just get on to that now....

Tar-ra for now...

We are Winners!

2009-03-09T03:48:00.000-07:00

Our Big News - hot off the press

This month, I've got 2 exciting pieces of news that will make a difference to IM over the coming months, and maybe even years...

Firstly we won a big industry award last Thursday night. The MCCA is our key trade association and runs the annual 'Best' awards for marketing agencies. We submitted one of our Lufthansa campaigns and were shortlisted in the 'Creme of the Best' award for strategic planning. It was great to be able to take the team who had worked on the campaign, and also a couple of the Lufthansa marketing team, to the awards do, and even better to win the Best Award for our category (beating big name agencies Arc Worldwide, Ogilvy Action and The Lounge Group). Winners of other categories included well known agencies like Saatchi and Saatchi X, Elvis and Euro RSCG and campaigns for Virgin Holidays, O2 and Barcardi, so we're in excellent company and it's a great one for our 'trophy cabinet'. What's really good about it is that it positions us as strategists (which is a core business objective for us) to other agencies and clients (existing and potential). Last year we won the B2B Direct Marketing category for an HSBC campaign, so we're demonstrating our breadth of skills.

Our other exciting piece of news is that we have brought on board a new chairman who has started with us today (we've not even released this news to the press yet). His experience is spot on for what we need as he set up the UK's first integrated marketing agency, grew it to a £multi-million turnover before selling it a few years ago. His experience and network of contacts means he'll be a great asset in our plans to raise our game to a new level. He's already had suggestions on how we can look at doing certain things differently, and potentially introducing some key new people into the business. It's a big step for us, as it's likely to mean that Trish and I will no longer be the sole share holders in the business that we set up and have grown together. Bringing in another member to the director team is going to be an interesting, challenging dynamic which I have great faith will shake us up in a positive way and move us forward. It's also going to change the way that I work. There'll be loads I can learn from him, and I'm going to make sure that I'm in a strong position, in conjunction with the other directors, to drive the business forward in a really positive way - structurally, as well as income-generating.

What else is new this month?

Other business news is that we've won Orange Business Services as a client - a brilliant one with huge potential, and also TaylorMade Golf. Client work for Isklar (a water brand we've been launching in the UK - look out for it in Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Harrods, and various other independents) is picking up, as has our new account with Timberland, so business is looking much stronger for the next few months. That's not to say we haven't had to make cut backs - we have, and we may not be replacing a couple of people who have resigned in the past couple of weeks depending on how the work pans out. But my view on this is that it's those businesses that keep a tight eye on their cost base and are pragmatic about what's coming up, as well as on pushing for income, that will be the ones that do best out of the recession.

Inspirational Entrepreneurial Women

I saw Karen last week (as well as Kresse - who I did manage to have a quick chat with - and Karen Darby - who was on the speakers panel) at the Real Business 100 Most Entrepreneurial Women event that we were all invited to. As the 3 of them (and Caroline Plumb from the MAD Mentor programme) were included on the list, I was very much a 'groupie' at the event - I was invited along by virtue of having been shortlisted for an entrepreneurial award last year. It was an inspirational session with incredibly impressive women entrepreneurs providing great examples and useful insights to the likes of me, and it was also great to catch up, albeit briefly, with Karen and Kresse.

I think that's it for the moment - it seems like it's been a successful and productive February, and with quite a few more bigger business picture plans in the pipeline, I am feeling pretty excited about the next few weeks and months.

Our Year End is this month, so April's going to be a fresh start for us in terms of our annual income and profitability objectives. Right now I'm focusing on how we can drive the business forward, and the starting point will be this year's business plan which I'm working on, in conjunction with our Account Directors. I'm hoping to chat it through with Karen (I'll be using some of my learnings from the day at Top Table) in the next couple of weeks before launching it to the business in April.

Where did January go?

2009-02-13T01:10:00.000-08:00

So, 6 weeks into 2009, it's been a busy start to the year, both on the mentoring front, and for Intelligent Marketing. Plus I've managed to squeeze in a week's skiing in the French Alps with a mad bunch of 18 friends - two of whom were actually on their honeymoon, and another 2 of whom got engaged (off piste!) while we were out there.

The See Saw effect...

For the business, the start to the year has had its ups and downs. We're all guns blazing on the acquisition of new clients - we're being kept super-busy responding to some really big opportunities from well known blue chip brands. We've already won new clients in Xerox and Coast (a new fish restaurant) and are well placed to win quite a few other hot prospects this month and in March.

On the 'down'-side, it's becoming frustrating that so few of our existing clients are in a position to confirm their budgets and their marketing plans for 2009. Projects are coming in to us at the last minute and, whilst it's brilliant that they do, not having a forward view is really hard to manage, particularly when you've got the welfare, motivation and morale of 22 staff to think about. And keeping busy on pitches and prospective business isn't the most profitable way to spend our time in the short term.

I think being flexible is going to be key to 2009, and we're revisiting and revising our plans monthly to accommodate the ever-changing economic environment.

Moving the mentoring forwards

This flux is inevitably going to affect the mentoring process as well - reviewing my objectives from 3 months ago, I'm not sure they're still as relevant now as they were then - our business is having to adapt to the challenges of the current trading environment, and my focus has to be slightly different as a result.

It's been busy already this year with the first mentee get-together in January, and the superb 'mid way' event with Suzanne's session providing much food for thought.

Also in January I arranged to meet up with cK, Karen's Head of Online Sales at TopTable. He's made some great suggestions on closing techniques for selling (we're probably a bit too 'softly softly' in our new business approach) and shared some useful contacts in digital media that we could potentially work with. There's also a strong chance that we could work with cK and Top Table on some specific projects for one of our clients, a bottled water brand, so I'm putting him in touch directly with one of our Account Directors.

What next?

Next up is my monthly get together with Karen - planned for Wednesday this week, at which I think we'll discuss some of the points raised as part of Suzanne's session on 28th January, revisit the mentoring objectives, as well as discuss the 'pressing business issues of the moment'.

I'm already looking forward to it as our catch ups are always both thought-provoking and inspiring.

Sadly I won't be able to make the next 'Dynamentee' get together although I'm doing my best to send through suggestions, contacts and feedback via email directly to other mentees if and when appropriate. In the mean time, if any of the others have any useful client contacts/opportunities, I'm hoping they'll send them my way too!

Until next time...

2009 here we come...

2009-01-12T01:36:00.000-08:00

Relaxed, Refreshed, Reinvigorated

So, having had a lovely 10 days off and taken time to recuperate, review the business and chat things through with family and friends, I've returned to the office with a renewed enthusiasm for 2009.

The Christmas break, unlike all others, is great in that no clients or other business contacts are working, so the Blackberry inbox doesn't fill up quite so quickly and it really is a total, guilt-free, break from the day to day.

New opportunities for Intelligent Marketing

This year will take IM into new ground I think. Yes, on the one hand, we'll be battling the ups and downs (not to mention the general negativity) of the current economic situation, with our industry body predicting a cut in client marketing budgets of 15-20%. But on the other hand, there will still be businesses out there, spending money and wanting to use tactical marketing to improve their sales, so we - as a smaller agency - should be able to take advantage of these possibilities. It will be a case of being flexible, keeping costs tight and responding to/creating opportunities.

We're also looking into ways in which we can look towards further growth when things move on, economically. We have definitely hit a new phase in our existence. There are various exciting plans in the pipeline though at present, it's early days, nothing's confirmed and consequently, it's pretty hush hush...

I discussed quite a few of these opportunities with Karen when we met pre-Christmas and found her advice invaluable, not only practically, but also in terms of giving me the confidence to push for what I and the business want and need, rather than what I thought/hoped we could get... I think it can be all too easy for women in business to settle for options rather than to push hard for the best.

As I said: definitely a new phase for IM so watch this space...

Away Day at Top Table

2008-12-20T07:43:00.000-08:00

One of the things I hoped to gain from the mentoring experience was a sense of how other businesses work and are run. Although I have been lucky enough to have had amazing experience setting up and running a successful company, most of this has been learnt ‘on the job’ so to speak. My professional experience has been entirely in small/medium sized marketing agencies and almost all the management team at IM previously worked at my previous company as well so it can sometimes feel a little too familiar.

I was therefore really excited to spend a day with Karen and her team at Top Table. It really was a perfect (albeit intense) ‘foundation day’; I feel like I’ve absorbed information like a sponge and ended up with an incredibly comprehensive understanding of how this successful business is run.

Sitting at the ‘top table’
I felt immensely privileged to be able to attend a board meeting at Top Table as an observer. It was fascinating to see the types of individuals that make up the board there, and the different areas of expertise they contribute. I found it useful to see the types of areas covered on the agenda, and in what level of detail (our board meetings can sometimes drift into more day to day issues).

I've won ‘5 mentors in 1’
I also spent 1-2-1 time with several of the senior management team:

Chris Wood, the Managing Director (who had previously worked in marketing too, so had really relevant experience) gave me a good overview of the business and what it’s like working with a business owner/founder

Andy Cottle, the Head of Finance provided excellent overview on setting and monitoring KPIs to keep the business on track.

Lucy Taylor, Head of Restaurant Relations, discussed selling – how we can sell our business better to existing and prospective clients to generate more income.

Karen herself also spent some time with me talking about managing people, particularly with difficult situations, the possibilities that could be opened to us via external investment and the implications of consequently sharing ownership of the business.

Still to come… a meeting with cK, the Head of online Sales… (we ran out of time!)

The combined experience of these people is amazing and so broad, meaning that the different perspectives I gained during the day really helped me build a picture of the different elements needed to run a strong business.

Other insights…
Having sight of Top Table’s Operations Plan for the year was also a useful lesson in how succinct and focused a business plan can be. Ours is quite an unwieldy document and I’m determined to make it an easy to follow and measurable 6 page document like Top Table’s for next year!

My next steps
As with my last session with Karen, I’ve come away inspired by the scope for how we can improve our business. We can certainly make it work more efficiently and profitably if I can implement some of the learnings. There are plenty of ideas on how we can work our internal processes more effectively while sticking to our vision of the future. I feel motivated and reassured that we’re on the right tracks – but see where there are ways we can definitely prepare ourselves for the next stage in our growth to ensure the business is genuinely successful and valuable.

Mentor kick off!

2008-11-21T18:00:00.000-08:00

Well – my mentoring kicked off today with Karen - she’s been great at keeping in touch by email since the official announcement. We had a really enjoyable lunch at L’Atelier Joel Robuchon – as you’d expect Karen knows where the best Top Table offers are and we had a tasty lunch at a very reasonable price!

5 years in 2 hours!
I’ve updated Karen on Intelligent Marketing, how we set up, what our plans are for the next 5 years or so, and talked through my role in relation to the other directors in the business. It feels like there’s loads to tell her – how can I summarise the highs and lows of our first 5 years in business, all the initiatives we’re proud of, what’s gone less well, the people I work with, my plans for the future, and my current concerns… all in a couple of hours?! That said, I was impressed at how much Karen knew about us and how thoroughly she’d checked out our website!

Anyway, we’ve covered loads of good stuff, including:
* Leadership
* Running a growing business
* Managing people (particularly senior members of the team)
* Maintaining a strong culture
* The roles of CEO vs MD…

which was incredibly stimulating and provided lots of food for thought for me. I now need to distill our conversation into the Fresh Ideas 3 month and 6 month objectives for the competition!

Next steps?

A day shadowing Karen, going to her offices, attending some of their meetings, getting to know her team and her business better.

Karen’s also very kindly agreed to make a presentation at one of Intelligent Marketing’s client Masterclasses which will be fantastic. I’m keen to make sure that the rest of IM knows what a great ‘prize’ I’ve won, and to demonstrate the benefits of it as overtly and publicly as possible. It was also a real pleasure to hear Karen say that she hoped to learn lots from the way we’ve done things too.

Our businesses are not dissimilar, and there may well be opportunities for sharing our experiences both ways.