Marketing Business Advice

[MrLizard]

Hello fellow humans, I am hoping you might be able to give me some advice.

MrsLizard runs a marketing company that has been slowly increasing in turn over for the past 4 years and has been operating for just over 5.

We have hit a point where we just cannot find decent staff. The business has no debt and about 25 clients (though most on 6 month contracts).

We have tried employing people at a high level - who seemed fine but then tried to sleep with one of our clients and steal some others

We have had grads and apprentices, we have tried marketing execs and coordinators from other companies. The good people soak up the knowledge and buy into the idea of helping build the business but then leave having got their CV to a good level. The bad ones tend to go on sick leave after passing probation for as long as they can (had like 6 people do this now...)

So we are at a point where the business is set to stay level at 180k turnover this year with probably 60k profit (before Mrs wage) but the Mrs has lost faith in trying to expand it as we just can't find anyone who wants to work. I can only think of a few options:

1. Get someone else to buy into the business, taking a share and therefore having a financial based invested interest in it doing well.

2. Try and merge with another company taking our clients with us somehow

3. Close up shop by slowly winding down - Mrs currently paying herself about 40k (depending on how the business cash flow is that month) but could walk into a job at a higher salary

4. Close up immediately and drive as far away as possible until run out of fuel, then get out and run until can't run anymore?

Any advice welcome!

[MrLizard]

Frimley111R said:

Getting someone to buy into the business is good in theory but then you have joint ownership and your wife needs to accept that decision making will happen that way and managing such relationships are a whole new challenge.

You could merge with another company but she may find similar issues to the above plus you need to work out how costs etc will merge too.

Why close it down? £40 a year is a good income.

I work part time with a small marketing agency who is excellent at what it does but not excellent at generating new business. If she has got that many clients she has done well IMO.

I do agree that 40 a year is indeed not bad the issue is she is doing work she needs an admin to do, or constant hr issues. I hear what you are saying about the decision making, I think she would struggle coming to terms with that.

Its a very frustrating situation as she has obviously made it succeed but feels like a failure because she cant grow the company.

[MrLizard]

StevieBee said:

Marketing is a broad church and it would be interesting to know what specifically the business does.

I'm guessing from your post that it's more focused towards the strategic planning side of things rather than the tactical stuff. If so, one way to expand is to look at the things you are currently out-sourcing, perhaps things like graphic design, web development and so on, and consider either merging with one of your suppliers or creating a new division within the company that offers these services in-house.

This is something we have considered, the issue is that the vision of the business was to try and pursued SMB's to outsource all their marketing requirements, we then had 5 people from tactical to strategy experts who could plan/cost/implement/report on the methods we used. Oddly this did seem to work, businesses liked the idea of getting a proper dept for 1/4 the cost based on hours worked or projects etc. The issue is that we can't afford to pay people above and beyond what a normal salary for the job is, though it is fair, we do however being small have to expect them to work extra hours occasionally.

We have given out bonuses and ipad's or vouchers - even a car to someone. We have tried agencies etc but I think we could improve on the head hunting.

We have been more careful about picking clients this year and have got rid of a couple, we are also looking at shopping offering web development as this just isn't really cost effective anymore.