Tag: professional services - Page 2

In the past 2 months I have spoken to more than 100 entrepreneurs in the technology, professional services, manufacturing and logistics industries. There has been a common thread to many of these calls, mostly that their website needs a revamp and they want to up their digital marketing efforts. It's not rocket science I know, but many companies didn't get on the digital bandwagon fast enough and have left it to the last minute. Better late than never, and there will always be those of whom think they can wait a little longer, which means ultimately, they will be the one's with less clients at the end of the day.

I have never been more busy in my life. I remember 2 years ago feeling completely overwhelmed by having so much on my plate, and feeling as though I was floundering.

I kept on taking on more 'stuff' and it wasn't a case of not being able to say no. I simply wanted to do all the things I was doing and they were important to me. I hired two personal assistants and that worked wonders, except I decided that they were too good to be personal assistants and moved them promptly into other roles.

As a entrepreneur who has a belief that you should always finish something you start, I am hell-bent on Marketing Eye's global expansion, and the only thing that holds the company back is my ability to travel more often given that I have a dog at home to look after.

Baring this in mind, we expanded to the US, and have done so in a way that we can trial operating remotely and within a management style that is conducive to me getting enough sleep and being present to whatever team I am working with at the time.

Knowing when to jump from corporate and when not to is a scary prospect for most marketers. Many have reasonably safe and secure jobs unless of course you work for the agencies consolidating and they need to get rid of a few, or Fairfax, and they decide that they can get rid of a few in the marketing departement as well.

As a professional services firm, we started the business hustling. Going to network events, speaking at every opportunity, and using our connections to bootstrap the growth of the company. We even used PR, which put me out of my comfort zone big time.

Unlike many professional services firms, I cared less about how much billable hours people are doing until the fatal day that it was brought to my attention by my internal accountant that some people were "performing" not as good as others and the gap was significant.

It is harder to work in a professional services firm than in corporate. Knowing that you have to do a certain number of billable hours is a lot of pressure until you actually stop thinking about it.

The challenges of running a professional services firm are many. What most of my counterparts would say is that it's people that determine whether you are successful or not - and this is correct.

A very wise man once said to me;

When ipads first came out… I was against it. I was so against this new piece of technology that I wrote a blog about it. I read the hype and was completely against people reading old fashioned books on a tablet of any kind whilst they were on holidays. I love books and am passionate about them being around long after the ipad has been superceded.