- Please tell us about yourself and your business background.
I started CEEK Marketing in late 2016 as a digital marketing specialist for the hospitality industry. For a while it was me and three employees. Today CEEK has a multi-million pound turnover, a team of 15 and 30+ retained clients across an array of sectors, from luxury and home & design to health and wellness, sustainability and, of course, hospitality which is where it all started.
From our first office in Brighton, where I’m from, we now have offices in London and Manchester and clients from all over the world – everyone from The Savoy to Lavazza via Bluewater Yachts and DAME.
- What is the most common problem faced by inexperienced business people and how can this be overcome?
Firstly, people need to not fear the Goliaths. Just because there’s big competitors in the same space, doesn’t mean you can’t take market share. You may be new but you can still be the best. Indeed, sometimes when there’s demand it’s actually easier to find the route to generate customers. But it’s important to establish in your own mind whether you’re a market maker or a market taker. Are you carving out a brand new audience for a product or service that doesn’t exist in this market yet, or do you have something new to bring to an existing space. Working out which category you fall into should completely define the marketing strategy you deploy.
Another common problem we come up against all the time with startups and small businesses is helping people understand the importance of prioritisation, and helping them do that effectively. Knowing how to spend your time and money within a marketing context can be very difficult because there’s so many factors that are completely outside of the control of the business owner, whether they’re macro economic changes, platform changes in the marketing landscape, big updates to platforms like Instagram, consumer behaviour changes or even compliance and legislation changes. All these things can affect your business, so even if you think you know what the right marketing strategy is, knowing where you actually deploy that strategy, your time and your resources in the context of all the external forces, is hard.
If you don’t have the resources to hire an agency to help prioritise and develop a strategy, then consider looking at other businesses in the space and learn from their wins, or mistakes. However, be careful that your actions aren’t solely dictated by that of others in the space, as just because they are doing something it doesn’t mean it is right for your brand. Take inspiration, not direction.
- What are the most important things to consider before starting your own business?
As an entrepreneur I can say from personal experience that it has to be timescales. Are you willing to do this for what feels like an extremely long time? Do you have longevity? Because starting your own business is not for everybody – there are huge pros but huge cons. I’ve never seen an entrepreneur hit what they thought they were going to hit at the time they thought they were going to hit it – ever.
Do you understand the level of commitment it takes to start and run a successful business? If you’re not willing to do it for years and years, don’t do it. You need to have a 5-10 year plus outlook and if it doesn’t feel comfortable doing it for at least that period of time, you should get a j-o-b.
And, as depressing as it sounds, look at the strength of your personal relationships before you start. Is your partnership strong enough to withstand the amount of time you will need to commit to the business, including working weekends and holidays, maybe missing events with family and friends? You won’t have the bandwidth to return calls as much as you’d like, or catch up with even the most important people in your life. You need to accept that it will happen and know that those people understand that too.
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
- What is the best way to recruit / hire members of your team? For example, should you recruit based on their attitude or experience?
Attitude trumps experience every single day. The best way to attract great staff is to chat about what you do publically, such as on social media, and then the right people will find their way to you. Just do what you do and celebrate it. If you do really good work and have a great attitude, you’ll always find that the right people gravitate to your business.
- How has the pandemic changed business?
The pandemic has had a cleansing effect on a number of industries by killing off a lot of business, unfortunately. Not fairly in many cases but those that were overleveraged and overstretched couldn’t cope. What that means is the businesses that are left are by definition stronger and they have a different mentality for having come out the other side. They are in it for the long haul and want a long term partner in marketing, which plays to our sweet spot as a true partnerships business. That in turn has enabled us to grow our business.
From an operational perspective, a lot of marketing agencies are shutting down their offices and moving into remote working, while our team has pushed to build a culture physically. We’ve responded to that desire and are investing in our infrastructure and our teams and I think that’s an appealing offering to many people, some of which are craving a team culture in an office environment.
- What is the most important lesson you have learnt as a result of your business? This may also be advice you can offer to budding game changing business professionals.
Easily the most important thing to be aware of for anyone starting a business is knowing how strong a salesman they are. That is front and centre of my mind when I’m hiring and it should be the same for any new business owner. Sales is the most important thing in business, in my opinion. It doesn’t matter how good you are, if you can’t sell you’re dead in the water. Whether that’s selling your staff into a vision, selling new clients into contracts, or selling new ideas. Selling is very important and if that’s not a natural skill set for you starting a business you want to find people that can very, very quickly.
Visit: https://ceek.co.uk/
About Charlie Terry
Charlie is a Digital Marketing specialist, working with the best brands across the globe to leverage their online presence to increase revenue.Charlie sits on the board of various businesses advising on marketing strategy and growth.
