Recession? No Excuse - Entrepreneur Paul Thomas gives some succinct advice

June 25, 2009 - PRLog -- Delegates heard Mr Thomas debate amongst his co-panellists on the subject of “Business Growth during a Recession”.  Every year leading organisations get together to put on the Enterprise event, which this year attracted over 1,000 firms.

There was such interest in the advice that Paul, director of the 6 year old Portsmouth-based telemarketing  and lead generation specialist Market Makers (which was recently given a place in the Sunday Times Top 100 companies to work for) gave, that I asked him if he could spare me some time to hone in on some of his recommendations.

Get your pen ready, because you’re in for some juicy tips, from someone who’s seen their telemarketing business grow from just two staff to over ninety in just six years (with no signs of slowing down).

One of Mr Thomas’s first tips was about the importance of marketing and sales, and keeping those two activities separate. He stated “Sales people are great once they’re in front of the client but they aren’t skilled marketers and you really need a separate team to do this. He went on” The marketing team need to create the opportunities and the sales team need to convert those opportunities into sales”. He pointed out how many companies go bust because they haven’t focussed on lead generation and are consequently not seeing the sales. He stressed the importance of monthly targets and working out your conversions from appointment to sale, as well as your average order value.

In fact, once I got him on to the subject of targets, he got very enthusiastic, but then he would do because his whole telemarketing company, Market Makers, is based around generating leads for business to business customers, through telemarketing against an agreed target.  “Does your company have targets for marketing, sales, what’s been invoiced and how much cash you’ve collected?” Mr Thomas asked. He recommends that you review every month what you’re actually trying to do with your business (surely more essential than ever, in this climate).

Then we got on to the subject of teams. Being a Pompey supporter doesn’t seem to come in to it.  What Paul is passionate about are the teams in your company, “don’t try and be a hero”, he advised “get a strong team around you”.

The next one surprised me again, as Mr Thomas suggested that we can all benefit from having a mentor – someone who’s done it before and been successful. Because it helps to have someone on the outside looking in.

Does Mr Thomas have any tips for small businesses, in today’s downturn?  Indeed he has, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Paul highlighted the importance of new business generation.  If some channels are performing poorly (for example PR or advertising) can you look at other ways to generate appointments? Highly targeted direct marketing (for example telemarketing) is one way to see exactly where your money is going and how much each lead is costing you.

Whilst it is essential to hang on to the clients you’ve got (and work them by cross selling and being generally pro-active with your relationship), if you lose them and you haven’t been generating new business, you’re in a dire position.

One piece of research that Paul quoted, which I found intriguing, was the fact that companies who invest in marketing in a recession always come out bigger and better than the competition once the recession is over.

Finally, and this is the bit that has been hitting many small companies hard, Paul said that the recession is an opportunity to cut out poor performers and bad team members to make your company leaner and more efficient, as well as amalgamating teams to cut costs on management.

To sum up, I asked Paul what his one key piece of advice would be for businesses out there today, struggling against the tide of recession.  His answer may surprise you: “it’s simple. In this climate you evolve or die. What I mean by this is companies mustn’t let the recession become an excuse.  It’s no good burying your head in the sand.  Business is out there to be had.  You just need to work out the best way of getting it for yourself”. And with that he had to take a call from a potential telemarketing client.

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