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The Strategy Of Success
The Strategy of Success T he FormulaBehind Expansion
‘Our business model is all about taking baby-steps. We teach our Brand Ambassadors how to sell. Once they can sell we give them Leadership skills. Then we teach them how to build a team, how to replace themselves through coaching ,and finally help them move towards the role of Managing Director. As a result, people have to prove that they can take on the role before we promote them, so it’s a pretty fail-safe formula’ - Rob Cotterell -
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e caught up with Phil Reid over at Promotions Company and Rob Cotterell from RedSeven to chat about their plans for expansion over the next quarter. W
Promotions Company has had a fantastic opening year. We set an office-wide competition last year in the Charity Field which they won, beating every other marketing company in the UK - a huge triumph. In the final week of the year, they completed 300 sales which was one of the highest turnovers we’ve had in recent years - a huge congratulations to all involved! They’ve won competitions to send guys to Ibiza, Sri Lanka, Miami and this year are opening up in Leeds (headed by Vik Verma) and also in Cardiff (lead by Josh Keeble and Magda Zaworksa). Phil only opened Promotions company in April last year after a break from the industry, and if his ambitions are realised over the next few months, they will have essentially gone from nothing to having a team of almost 50 people and plans to be working in 4 different cities. In just 16 months, that’s definitely something to be proud of and Phil tells us how ‘it really did surpass my expectations in terms of progression; it’s been sensational’.
013 RedSeven’s big goal is to open 8 new offices in the next 18 months. They’ve recently opened a second office in Cheltenham and in April will be moving into Oxford, with further plans to begin working in Cardiff, London, Manchester, Northampton, Chelmsford and Leicester. Rob expands upon their strategy, explaining how ’We split the country up into territories, so each area has to have a certain radius of customers. We’re looking at cool cities, fun places to live, looking at the demographic, the atmosphere…and base our locations upon that. Places that will have high levels of recruitment and the quality of the demographic. Places we want to live and work in’.
With ambitious plans for the next few months, the focus has been on strategy; implementing a solid quarterly structure in order to maintain control and ensure that there are enough people on board to head the new offices. Our strategy involves four main considerations: Location / Recruitment / Coaching / Promotion. This sequence is essentially on loop as the company grows, enabling a cyclical process of development to emerge; one that can be sustained and one that covers all bases.
The vast geographical reach of our offices is starting to become apparent; with teams based in Russia, Belarus and all over the UK, it’s pretty exciting to assume a bird’s eye perspective on the business. We are building a global brand. Our teams are starting to travel and Rob’s role is changing as a result: ‘I’ve been travelling all over the country recently and ensuring that I’m a presence across the board, ensuring that we have a cohesive brand identity and that everyone is receiving enough support. My role has moved much more towards mentoring, supporting and travelling in the last quarter which I’m really enjoying’. Each physical location has something unique to offer, not just in terms of the vibe of each city, but rather through the people that contribute to that atmosphere. This brings us on to the next phase of our strategy. Recruitment.
Expansion simply cannot happen successfully without new recruits. As we discussed in the last edition of this magazine, the recruitment process is changing. Our teams are having to adapt their methods to match the everchanging realm of social media: the middle man of modern recruitment. One of the main benefits of using social media as a tool for recruitment is that it opens up the process to people from a great variety of backgrounds. Phil explains how ‘90% of the people I take on have never done this before. When I look for people to work in this industry, I don't look at people’s history, I am concentrating on their potential for achieving in the future. Too many businesses focus on the ‘previous experience’ section of a CV, rather than seeing the individual and giving them a chance to thrive’.
We are investing more money into our recruitment staff and consequently more energy into new methods of recruitment such as Instagram, LinkedIn, PR etc. Rob explains how ‘It’s not as simple as just putting an ad out there anymore; however, that’s a good thing as it means that we are able to hire people who come from different backgrounds and can bring something new to the company’. In this way, we are able to access a broader demographic of people. By implementing social media tactics such as adding hashtags and tagging companies in stories, we are able to connect with people who perhaps never even knew this line of work existed. We can use social media as a tool for bringing in a wide range of people to bring their personalities to the business; that’s really exciting for us and we enjoy facilitating the genesis of a new career for a talented individual, regardless of their experience.
‘Our business is open to everyone, regardless of whether or not you have experience in this line of work. If you have an open mind, a positive attitude and an extraordinary work ethic, we can coach you and we want to work with you. There are so many diamonds out there, that if given enough support and an environment within which to thrive, they will go far.’ (Phil)
Lots of businesses are too lazy to think outside the box and to take on people that need support. That’s not us. If you’ve never done this before then great, you’re a blank canvas, which is a wonderful thing to work with! We’re looking for the next group of ‘diamonds in the rough’. ‘I would say 95% of all of our team across the country have never done direct sales before, never worked in this environment, so we are completely open to recruiting those types of people’ (Rob).
This leads us on to the next phase of the expansion strategy: Coaching. After we have sourced the best people to help us grow the company, the next stage is to bring everyone up to speed in terms of how we operate as a business. Because we inevitably end up working with lots of new faces, we don’t just want to throw you in the deep end (although sometimes taking such a risk can produce excellent results!). We strive to make sure that you are provided with the skills needed to go out into the Field with confidence and a smile on your face. Our coaching programme is second to none meaning that we can easily and quickly bring anyone up to speed, regardless of their background. Rob adds that ‘
It’s often actually easier for us to coach someone from scratch because they don’t have any bad habits! They are open to quickly adapting to our mode of working, which is great!’.
017 The result of great coaching is quick Promotion. In order for those people that we already have working with us to go out and open their own offices, we need to make sure we have enough people to promote. Over at RedSeven, for example, we ‘need to be sitting at around 50 people in Swindon, so that when 15 of those open up in new cities, we’re not falling short at our home base.’ This expansion is inevitable so what we are now looking for is the next generation of Managers and Coaches; people that - in a few month’s time - will be running the show and have the ambition, potential and drive to do so. Rob tells us that ‘When someone is sitting in my reception, that’s what I’ll be looking out for. I need a solid team of people that I know will go on to replace my Owners and be able to start coaching recruits themselves. It’s all about staying on top of this ever-changing dynamic and ensuring that we are covering all bases’. We are in an incredibly dynamic phase of the company right now, so we are looking forward to meeting the next wave of talent.
In order for this process to run smoothly, we are heavily reliant on our admin teams. A huge shout out to goes out to Kev who is the office manager and head recruiter over at Promotions Co. He has done a sensational job. We’ve also taken on Natalia as a new recruiter and she’s been incredible.
Over at RedSeven, we have the newly appointed Sarah Broadfield, working alongside Nina in the recruitment department. She joined us just before Christmas and has been absolutely incredible; her work ethic, her adaptability, her aggression to taking on responsibility and breaking comfort zones is utterly inspiring. She’s been focusing on bringing in the majority of our Brand Ambassadors for 2020. I asked Phil what he thinks makes up a strong administration team and explained that it’s all about them feeling as involved as everybody else: ‘An integral part of a solid admin in team is that they feel involved enough that they genuinely care about the business, as if it’s their own. Because it is! The removal of hierarchy is something I think is hugely important regarding the success of a company such as this’. Each party has to hold each other accountable in order to operate as a cohesive business, as
a team, which brings us onto the the key to the smooth running of a successful office: communication. ‘If we’re all clear about what we expect of one another and what we need form the company, them the risk of miscommunication diminishes and mistakes can be avoided’ (Phil). The more money we turnover as a business and the quicker our expansion, the greater amount of profit we have to share around. Essentially the admin team are in charge of the expansion; they are the ones that directly bring people in through the door and so the more effort they put into ensuring that the recruitment process is a good is at can be, the greater their own personal profit from the business.
Finally, we’ve got to make sure that the dayto-day workings of the company match up with the brand we are sharing with the public. Rob explains how ‘I’ve then got to make sure that the sales standards are right, the atmosphere is right so that these people are coming into the right environment; I don't want to be selling people a false idea of who we are and what we stand for. It’s important that we are ‘on-brand’ so to speak, to avoid any sort of disparity between what people expect of RedSeven and what we can provide’. This wraps up the strategy for a successful business model and is something we will be implementing every quarter, adapting details accordingly and remaining flexible with our approach. We work with some massive clients, so its really important that we maintain a high standard and with a formal structure in place we can look forward to realising our industry ambitions.
