Spend Less – Get More

Posted on | May 16, 2012

How focussing on local marketing can often help you reduce your marketing spend and get better results for your network.

Let’s be honest, marketing is one area of business that everyone knows they need, but few really understand how to get the best from. Recent data from our friends at Smith & Henderson(www.franchisebenchmark.co.uk) found that marketing support was the third lowest area of franchisee satisfaction in their 2011 Franchise Satisfaction Benchmark programme. The third lowest! As someone who spends everyday developing and implementing marketing strategies for clients, I can tell you it really doesn’t need to be that way.

Amongst franchisees there is clearly an appetite for better marketing support. We have worked with some who were desperate for marketing support, yet they felt their Franchisor was providing only a general solution, rather than addressing what they saw as territory specific issues. They wanted to see initiatives that supported their business and helped their sales to grow – they just didn’t see that promoting national brand awareness was enough on its own.

The truth of course, is that marketing has to address both national and local objectives. One feeds the other, but unless the marketing you provide actually works for your franchisee, then it often ceases to be seen as support. Marketing isn’t abstract, and it’s not something that can be generalised – it’s about positioning yourself correctly within the context of the market you operate in. That’s how I look at it in my business and I know that’s how most of the Franchisees who we have worked with have looked at it.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is there is no single right answer. Every business is different and every business needs to find the right marketing mix that will work for them. The good news is there are some simple things every network can do to help their franchisees. The first is to think locally.

Think Local

Local marketing isn’t a new concept, but it’s been one that many people only think is relevant when they move into new countries with new languages and new cultures. Not so. Marketing is always about local, because it’s always about the individual customer. It’s about what the customer wants, how the customer sees your brand and what the customer needs at any given time.

There is no reason for franchising to be any different. The Franchisor creates a strong brand and a strong system, which in order for the network to grow, requires marketing on a national level. The franchisee however, needs to understand how to fit that brand into their local territory, and yes, this requires specialist marketing at a local level.

 Cut The Waste

How many times have you looked at the costs of a marketing campaign and cringed, wondering if it was all going to be worth it? You’re not alone. Everyone does it. Many franchises adopt a one size fits all approach to marketing. Single campaigns are developed and then distributed to every territory to use. Everyone gets the leaflets, everyone gets the posters and everyone gets the same deal. It’s quick, it’s simple and it can be fairly low cost, but… it’s just not effective. That means no matter how much or how little you spend, most of it will inevitably be wasted.

There is local competition and there are local tastes, local traditions and local demographics. The challenge that local marketing poses is to get you to understand how your brand and values can fit, not how you can get the territory to fit your brand and values.

A couple of years ago we started to work with a large, national, retail franchise. Our first step was to visit all of their franchisees, to explore their local area and evaluate their local market. The first thing we found out though, was that only about 25% of the franchisees thought the national campaigns were even remotely relevant to their territories. Worse still, a large proportion of the other 75% didn’t even bother to implement the campaign, such was their belief that it wouldn’t work for them. The actual amount money being wasted here was frightening and almost no-one saw any benefit. 

By talking to the franchisees and understanding their individual circumstances, we were able to create new initiatives that were flexible enough to be tailored to each territory. The best thing about it for the franchisor was, because no spend was wasted, they got effective campaigns that didn’t cost any more to produce than the ineffective ones did.

Talk To Your Network

You put a huge amount of time and effort into attracting and selecting the very best franchisees for your network. Talk to them. They are your secret weapon in understanding how to bring your brand into their home turf. They know the people and the area, they know the competition and the local tastes, so, let them guide your marketing. You trust them with your brand, so trust them to help you sell it.

Your franchisees are your biggest asset for local marketing and you need to use them. We certainly do. I consider myself to be an expert in marketing, but I don’t know more about franchising than my franchisor clients and I don’t know more about the territories than their franchisees. We use their knowledge because it’s the best source there is.

Support Leads to Goodwill

I know I started a bit “doom and gloom” by leading with the fact that franchisees ranked marketing support as one of the bottom three areas of satisfaction. Sorry about that. The good news is that thinking locally can have a big impact on your network – both financially and in your relationships.

A welcome, if unexpected, piece of positive feedback we received from a client once concerned the level of increased ‘goodwill’ he was receiving from his network thanks to the work we were doing on his behalf. Franchisees felt more valued and in more control than ever before, and they were really grateful for that.

If you support your network on a local level, if you focus your marketing so that it is effective for your network within their own territories, you are showing your network how much you are really doing to help them grow. That’s good for everyone, and it makes a compelling reason to buy one of your franchises.

If everyone wins, everyone wins.

Jordan Fleming is managing director of Designate, an innovative marketing company that specialises in providing hands-on local marketing support for franchise networks. He is speaking on local marketing at the BFA Specialist Seminar during Scottish Franchise Week in May and again at the BFA annual conference in June. You can reach him at www.franchisemarketingsystem.co.uk 

(This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of What Franchise magazine)

Crowd-funding: The saviour of our times or a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Posted on | May 11, 2012

Crowd-funding. It’s everywhere. It’s on everyone’s lips and it’s in everything we seem to be seeing right now.

Is that a good thing? I’m not 100% convinced yet.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why companies are looking to this model. In these days of budget cutbacks, bank retractions and an investor marketplace that is increasingly careful with its cash, it makes sense for companies that need capital to invest in their business to look at any available model.

It also makes sense in the current ‘social’ model that we seem to be living our lives. Like it or not, the current world is, increasingly, a social world and more and more people are bringing socially enabled devices and systems into every aspect of their lives. Take me, for example. My girlfriend and I live together and yet we routinely ‘like’ each other’s FaceBook updates. Often when we’re in the same room. Sad isn’t it? But it’s a statement to how prevalent the social tools have become in every aspect of our lives.

Crowd-funding takes advantage of that. And it makes sense. Why not? That is, after all, just an extension of how most seed funding gets raised. I used to go to my family and friends, now I can go to a much wider group of interested people (who may, after all, turn out to be customers).

At it’s heart, I don’t have a problem with the idea of crowd-funding. I remain, however, a healthy sceptic.

And let me tell you why.

Who is accountable?
Over the years I have been involved with a lot of young companies who have needed to get investment in order to bring their technology to market. Invariably there is a tremendous amount of accountability within this setup. Investors tend to be fairly cautious when it comes to handing out money, so they take the time (and this is normally when we are brought in) to really find out the ins and outs of a project – who is involved, why it will work and why it’s a sensible investment. Crowd-funding has the potential of obfuscating this process. It’s difficult to see exactly why some of these ideas really warrant investment at all, and there really isn’t a mechanism (that I can see) for people to really understand what, and who, they are investing in. That gives me the shivers in many ways. I guess in some ways it doesn’t matter for most of these ‘investors’. If I’m only investing £100 of my money, do I really need to do that much diligence? Still, I remain unconvinced.

Is it justified?
Private investment can make or break a company. It can help amazing technologies come to fruition and it can help launch internationally successful brands. On the other hand (thanks largely to idiotic programmes like Dragon’s Den) an awful lot of companies are turning to investment when they should be selling. They are treating investment as a cash-flow fix and that’s simply not a good idea. I have seen a lot of potentially interesting companies lose their way in this regard. They are convinced that they should be raising money to get to market when, a lot of times, they can actually fund their development through sales. That’s a bad business plan (hello dilution!) and it’s a bad trend within the community. Most sensible investors will avoid it, but crowd-funding may be these companies’s unwitting accomplices. How many companies will get refused funding via traditional means (for very very good reasons) and turn to crowd-funding just because they can? That worries me. Of course it’s true that some very worthy companies fail to get investment and go on to success. It happens all the time. But it’s equally true that a lot of companies that don’t get investment don’t actually deserve it. How do a bunch of people online tell the difference?

How are you spending that money?
Another real bugbear of mine. Your raising the money, now how are you going to spend it? Is money all you really need, or do you really need the capabilities and connections that professional investors will bring you. Chances are they have been there and done it a number of times, and their contacts and experience are going to be worth way more than the money they invest. How does crowd-funding address this? I worry that successful companies will end up with cash to burn but no real strategy for how to spend it. Just having money isn’t enough: you need to understand what to do with it.

I’m a real scrooge aren’t I? It sounds like it, but I’m really not. I think crowd-funding has the opportunity of leveling the playing field to a huge degree, and that’s not a bad thing at all. The problem is that it also throws up a lot of questions, and I don’t see enough of the ‘crowd-funding evangelists’ talking about these questions. It’s all positive from them. Crowd-funding is the golden ticket. Right?

Wrong. That’s a load of bollocks. There is no golden ticket.

Crowd-funding, if used properly, can be a blessing.

Crowd-funding, if used improperly, can be a curse. Or a scam. Or a boondoggle.

Which way are you going?

-j

Franchising Fun for Free (alliteration special)

Posted on | April 27, 2012

Guess what? Next week is Scottish Franchise Week! Hurrah!

For those who don’t know (and why, I might ask, is that?) my company Designate is heavily involved in franchising and has been for the past four years or so. Every year we get a bit of a treat up here in Scotland as we get to focus 100% on franchising and trying to boost the profile of the sector up here.

Lots of events on all week. If you want some more information you can get it here:

Scottish Franchise Week

The British Franchise Association

For those of you who may be thinking about working for themselves, franchising can be a way of creating your own business without the risks of starting from scratch. For those of you who have goof businesses you’d like to expand, franchising may be a way of doing this in a much more cost-effective way.

Regardless, franchising is a brilliant business format when done properly. If you’re interested in anything to do with the sector, I’d encourage you to come along and have a look. If you want to have a quick chat, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do to answer any questions.

- j

Quick thought: are you asking me what I want or are you telling me what I should have?

Posted on | April 5, 2012

This is really a quickie – but how many times have you seen a salesperson make the fundamental mistake of telling a prospect what they can do rather than ask them what they need? I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop listening to a guy try very hard to land a sale. He won’t make it. He won’t get it. Why? He hasn’t actually listened to what the other guy is saying. He brushed over what the guy was looking for and went straight into a list of what he can provide.

Rookie mistake.

Makes me wish I was a sales trainer as I’d be into his boss’s office in a heartbeat :-)

Fundamental sales tip: find out what your prospect needs, don’t tell him what you can do.

-j

Quick MISS thought: Data-Driven?

Posted on | March 13, 2012

The subject of CRM comes up a lot in my working week. For those that aren’t familiar, CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. In layman’s terms: it’s about your database of contacts and how you use it.

How you use it. That’s the key bit isn’t it?

Data is very rarely valuable in itself. A database of people holds no worth unless you can use it effectively.

A lot of times I will hear people talk about how they can capture data. That’s a good start. You should be capturing data. But what are you going to do with that data and how are you going to turn that data into useable marketing opportunities.

The key to this is to start with the process and what you want it to achieve. Most people start with the data collecting, and most people who start this way end up with a database full of names they never turn into anything. Start with what you’re trying to achieve. Who are you trying to collect data on? What are you going to do with this data when you have it? What process do you have for keeping it up-to-date? Do you need to segment the data into smaller groups? How are you going to reach out to the people in the database?

(I could go on and on and on and…)

So this week’s quick thought is simple: Look at how you are tracking your databases and ask yourself – what are we doing with this information? If you can’t answer that in a very specific and concrete way, you need to go back to the start and look at process from the begininng. Better to do that than to spend months of time and resources collecting data on people you’re never going to reach.

- j

Marketing, the Designate way

Posted on | February 24, 2012

The team and I were chatting yesterday and Gayle made a point that has stuck with me all night: When we talk to people, too many of them don’t understand what marketing is.

She’s right. And it can make it difficult to show people where we can fit into their company. If they don’t really understand what marketing is, how will they know they need it?

I’ve talked about this a lot. It bugs me, but I also understand it.

The problem, as I have written about before, is the fact that most people conflate strategy and tactics. Or if they are not conflating the two of them, they are focussing all their attention on the one, never bothering to think of the other.

That’s the reason people think of websites, advertising, brochures, leaflets, SEO, Adwords etc. whenever they think of marketing. It’s why they think of pretty words and pretty pictures. They forget that, if you do it well, all of those things come at the end of a process. A process that starts with what marketing is all about.

So I’m going to throw my hat into the ring for a bit, and talk about how we, at Designate, approach marketing. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it may give you some ideas of where you need to focus on, particularly if something isn’t working.

So. Marketing, the Designate way:

1. Understanding what you do and how it makes money
   Seems obvious, but it’s not. What you really do as a business is sometimes the hardest thing to figure out. Too many companies are reactive in this sense. They see an opportunity  and they go for it, regardless of how suitable it is. The first thing you really need to do is understand what you do and how it makes the best money.
2. Understanding where you fit
   OK, you see some good long-term opportunities. But how do you fit? Where does your offering sit? Do you have competitors? How are you placed against them? Why would someone chose you? What are you bringing to the table? If you can’t answer that, how can you expect prospective clients to do the same?
3. Understanding who your customers are
   Who are your real customers, and how much are you kidding yourself on. It’s all well and good to say “anyone who needs…” is a customer, but let’s be honest, they are not. It’s a pipe dream, a fantasy, and an absolutely straight ride to ruin. You need to understand who your customers are really going to be. Who is really your target audience. Who are you really trying to reach and how are you fitting with them? Until you understand this, how can you expect to reach them?
4. Understanding how to reach them
   This can sometimes be the pretty bits, so relax, they are here at last. Understanding how to reach your customers is a skill all on it’s own, but notice that it comes on the fourth point? There are three other crucial areas you need to understand before you start to create the mechanisms to reach your customers. And mechanisms will change. They should change. But more importantly, they need to be based on points 1-3 or you’re just as likely to spend a lot of money for nothing. This is precisely why so many companies feel like marketing is a black hole of money. They jump straight to this step and miss out the fundamentals.
5. Understanding how to scale
   This is important. Understanding how you’ll scale is one of the truly overlooked aspects of marketing, but one that tends to bite people straight on the ass. If you can’t understand how you’ll scale and cope with the business your marketing brings in, you might as well not do the marketing. You’ll lose those new clients right away. You see marketing isn’t just about bringing in new opportunities, it’s also about keeping the existing ones. It’s about making sure your best foot is forward with everyone in every situation. If your capacity can’t cope with the marketing, you need to think again.

Well, it’s a start. Not an exhaustive one, to be sure, but a start nonetheless. If I’ve convinced you of one thing, I hope it’s that Step 4 needs to be based on the solid foundations of steps 1-3. If you don’t do that, you could be in for a lot of wasted time and money. And nobody wants that.

If you think you need a bit of help with this, drop me a line.

-j

What do you think of when you think of marketing?

Posted on | February 9, 2012

When we were kids we used to play a game where you had to say the first thing that came into your head after hearing a word. They do it in interviews sometimes. It’s normally called “quick-fire” or something like that. I’m not sure. I never cared about the name. The reason we played, though, was to see what people would instinctively say when they couldn’t think through the consequences of their response. Of course, being boys, our questions tended to focus on…well…I probably don’t need to elaborate.

Twenty years later and it strikes me that the reasoning behind the game is still sound. How often do we change our answers when we think about the consequences they might mean. I may think that the guy I’ve just been in a meeting with is a complete tosser, but I probably say something neutral like “he had some interesting ideas”.

(well, I’m probably not the best example of this game as I have a unfortunate habit of saying whatever is in my head at any one point in time. It’s endearing to some, infuriating to others)

This has got me thinking. Can I do an experiment with people I know in business and through in the word “marketing” so that we can finally see what people really think?

The reason this has crossed my mind lately is the sheer number of businesses I have met over the past year who have, in my opinion, a pretty warped idea of what marketing is really all about.

Hot answers?

1. Clever Words
   Well, it can be. That certainly can help. You do sometimes need the ability to sell what’s on the table and the right words can have a big impact. Sure that’s part of it. I’d say roughly 5%, but I’ll give it to you.
2. Pretty Pictures
   Again, OK. It can help. If you’re trying to sell beautiful car it helps to show it. If you’re selling your services as a painter it helps to show a beautifully painted room. People react to visuals. They get drawn in. So I’ll give this another 5%.
3. Social Media
   This can be part. It doesn’t have to be a big part and it can also be a HUGE part. It sort of depends on who you are and what you’re selling. It depends on your customers and it depends on your team. But I’ll put this in the mix. Another 5%?
4. Leaflets & Brochures
   Anyone else guess what I’m about to say? I don’t need to, do I? We’re now up to 20% aren’t we?
5. Websites
   I may disappoint you when I say this is going up to 10%. It is. The web is the easiest marketing tool you have – the most flexible, the most cost-effective… It’s a pretty important consideration and it’s brought us up to 30%.

30%.

30 percent!

Seriously. That’s where I’m putting the majority of answers I get.

I’ll put it more bluntly. The majority of businesses I meet spend most of their marketing effort, attention and money on 30% of the marketing mix. That’s a pretty shocking set of numbers isn’t it? And if you think about it, you know it’s true. I know it. You know it.

Why is this?

I suppose in some ways the 30% they think about represents the easiest parts of marketing. The gloss. Well, that’s not fair. It’s not the gloss. That’s a bit demeaning. It’s more like appreciating a really good meal without knowing how to cook. A bit like the kids on Jamie Oliver’s shows who don’t realise that steak comes from cows. They see the finished product by itself and never think about the underlying work that needs to be done to get to that stage.

You can appreciate a house all you want, but if you’re going to build one, you better make bloody sure of the foundations. Otherwise, that pretty bit of art-deco finishing on the top of your stairway bannister is going to look slightly less pretty at the bottom of a collapsed building.

And that’s kind of the point anyways, isn’t it? I ask ten business owners I know about marketing and the majority of them think about the 30% they can see and feel. Not one of them think about the foundations of the house. They may be lucky. They might be built on the most solid foundations around. They might not be lucky.

At what point could it all come crashing down?

- j

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood (How to plan for growth in 2012)

Posted on | January 25, 2012

(my apologies to Mr Frost)

When you’re trying to grow a business, it’s not really two paths that diverge is it? It’s more like ten. Or twenty. Or…what day is it today? It could be a hundred.

(By the way, this doesn’t have anything to do with the sheer number of hats – I hadn’t realised I’d be an accountant AND a therapist this year – you have to wear when you own a growing business.)

No. I’m talking about opportunities.

I remember when I first started my company. I was pretty new to business in general (ok, very new) and I saw opportunities everywhere. I ran around chasing most leads, qualifying very few of them, and generally wasting my time. I dabbled. I had a vague notion of growing a business – I knew I wanted more clients and more money – but if I look back in honesty, I was running around with no real sense of plan.

Does this sound familiar? How many businesses do you think dabble? I don’t mean you don’t know what you’re doing. You probably do. But if you really want serious business growth, do you really think dabbling is the way forward? Do you really think that an unstructured approach is going to work? It may work sometimes. You can always get lucky and, if you’re a decent chat, you can probably get a number of people on your side. Lord knows I did. But real significant sustainable growth didn’t happen for me until I got a plan.

I’m lucky in a way. My company specialises in marketing strategy. We spend every waking minute of the day thinking about where to place our clients so that they can achieve significant growth. We understand the need for building a comprehensive structure around business development and we are locked into the notion of focus. I practically get in tattooed on new employees.

When it came to creating a structure and strategy for my business, I had all the tools I needed at my disposal. I had over six years of experience in building these strategies for other people, and in seeing how they needed to evolve and change over time as circumstances (internal and external) changed.

Every week I revisit my strategy to ensure that I’m doing the things I need to do to achieve the goals I have set out. And every year I take a look at where we need to get to over the next 12, 24 and 36 months and I readjust the strategy to suit.

What do I look at every year?

1. Business Focus
   This is critical. It’s too easy to get sucked into the idea that any business is good business. It’s simply not true. Anybody can start a business and anyone can lose money. Anyone can just scrape by. The reality of growing a profitable and long-term business is different. You need focus and, more importantly, you need to be focussing on the right things. Over the last three years I have been slowly refining our business model into the one that I want. I’ve also been narrowing our focus. We turn away a lot of business now if it doesn’t fall within our key focus areas. Focussing on the right business models and the right target markets are the most important thing you can do every year. You have to have the courage to do it, but it’s worth the pain.
2. Strategic Partners, Champions & Referrers
   Surrounding yourself and your business with the right people is one of the key parts of having a successful business. Having the right team is absolutely essential. Your team is more than your staff, it’s also about who you have surrounded around your business who can stand beside, behind and, sometimes, in front of you. Every year I look to create relationships with key influencers who I want associated with my business. Every year I look to solidify relationships I have already developed. The stronger these relationships become, the stronger my business becomes.
3. Networking Opportunities.
   You can’t throw a stick at the moment (at least in Edinburgh) without hitting another opportunity to do ‘networking’. I’m of several minds when it comes to networking. I used to do a lot of it, and now I do a very very small amount. I don’t actually believe that 90% of the networking most people do is effective. Certainly my old networking wasn’t. This, by the way, had nothing to do with the quality of the networking groups or the calibre of people I was meeting. I met a lot of great people. But networking has to be twinned with focus. I have to ask “why am I going here?” and “what am I trying to achieve?”. That isn’t about winning more work, but is about my business focus. You should be looking to network and build relationships with a direct link to your business focus. Your focus should drive your networking, not the other way around. Once you realise that, you can start to understand where you need to be and what relationships you should be trying to build.
4. Marketing & Profile
   Again this is a pretty obvious one for me, but every year I look at what I want to achieve with our own profile and marketing initiatives. One doesn’t drive the other. There is no point in thinking up clever marketing if it’s not driving the right business. For me, I start with the type of business I want to build that year and work backwards. I think about what activities can help me achieve those goals and where we may need some help.
5. Cost of Growth
   Finally, I look at what growth I’m trying to achieve in the next twelve months and what that may mean from a financial and capacity point of view. Case and point: we’ve just hired someone. That means wages, taxes, desk, computer, travel…the list goes on. I look at the growth I’m trying to achieve that year and I put different plans in place for what that will mean to the company in real financial, personnel and overhead terms.

There it is. A simple formula to look growth on an annual basis. Simple to say – much more difficult to do. But then, that’s why people hire us ;-)

-j

Hey you! Yeah you! I’m talking to you!

Posted on | January 19, 2012

Subtle eh?

Yep it’s that time again. We’re looking to hire someone new. It’s kind of like a weird version of christmas (the same anticipation of what you’ll get under the tree, with the added bonus of having to pay for it yourself) if Christmas came with an inflated tax bill and a need for an extra computer.

The new position could be full-time or could be a shorter contract (with the intention of full-time) – it just depends on the person and the situation.

But yeah, we’re looking for someone new and exciting to join our team. This is a more junior position suitable for someone at the start of their career (or is looking for a change) who is looking for an amazing opportunity. Someone who wants to learn and develop, to challenge themselves and grow. Someone who wants to be in a dynamic environment and really contribute to our success.

As I’ve said before, I’m not really one for job applications, CVs and interviews. It’s just not me. But to be fair to everyone, I thought I’d take a moment to list out what we’re (sort of) looking for and why you’d want to work with us. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it should give you a good idea of whether you’d like it here.

What’s it like working here?

Busy. Exciting. Fluid. Curious. Challenging. Fun.

We are a growing company. We all have to be a bit of an all-rounder. Some days we’ll be working on launching a new product and other days we’ll be talking to franchisees down in London on how they can drive new sales in their region. It changes. You need to be flexible. You need to look ahead. You need to be quick and be precise.

This is a fun company. We work hard when we need to and there can be long days and long nights. We also have fun. There’s a lot of banter. There is a lot of curiosity. We get to know our clients. We get to meet new friends.

Every week is different. Every project is different. We make a make a big impact on our clients, and it’s a big responsibility. It’s also a big privilege. We get to see the fruits of our labour played out every week.

What type of skills will you need?

Yes I know. I said right from the start that you’ll need to be a bit of an all-rounder. And that’s true. We are a small company. We don’t have room for people who can’t accomplish a lot of different tasks. I’m also looking for someone who will fit into the company dynamic – we are a young, growing, creative, ambitious company.

But there are skills we need:

• Curiosity and creativity- we are a creative company. We develop marketing strategies for businesses and we do it really well. I want someone who will be curious and creative. Someone who wants to learn a new way of working and will bring a strong creative outlook to the business. Equally, someone who is willing to make suggestion; bring their ideas and their perspectives; open and anxious to improve the processes we already have in place.
• Communication skills – this really should be obvious, but we are a marketing company and it’s essential that you have good communication skills. You’ll be working directly with clients, creatives and our strategic partners, and  when you do, you represent the company (and me personally).
• Responsibility – We’re all busy. We have a lot on the go. We’re going to be relying on you and we don’t want to be let down. We’ll give you as much support as we possibly can, but you will need to step up your game and take responsibility for things. It’s an awesome chance to prove it to yourself and to us.
• Know how to use a bloody computer – Seriously this should also be a no-brainer. You’ll be doing research, you’ll be writing, you’ll be working. If you can’t use a computer (preferably a MAC) then you probably shouldn’t apply.

Why work for Designate?

Well, first off, there is a salary and room to move up. As we grow, so will you. But I’m not really interested in hiring someone who is only in it for a 9-5 pay check. This is a growing company. I want someone who wants to play a big role in an exciting business. Someone who wants to make an impact and see the real value in the contribution they make. As we grow and spread our wings, we’ll be taking you along with us. There is a lot of scope to develop your role and I’m always happy to help my staff develop.

In short, I prefer to work with someone who wants to take responsibility, who wants to be passionate about where they work, who wants to try new things and who wants to make a difference to my company and our clients.

What I can promise in return is a fun working environment, an exciting and challenging opportunity to learn and my full support.

If this sounds about right to you, or you feel you know someone who fills the bill, drop me a line:

@jordanfleming

Jordan@thedesignategroup.com

I haven’t really been away for long….

Posted on | January 13, 2012

Hello, hello, hello…

Every time I log into my LinkedIn account it sits there. A stark reminder that I haven’t written in this blog for ages. I have to admit, it’s getting on my nerves.

It really hasn’t been that long. It just feels that way. December was a write off – lots of running around, lots of evenings out, and then I (as tradition seems to dictate) got ill in the last week of work. Time slipped further and further away.

But I’m back now. It’s a new year. I love this time. So many possibilities.

I’ll write more over the course of the next week, but for now I just wanted to send out a big happy new year. I can’t wait to get stuck into 2012.

-j