It’s fair to say that the last 6/9 months have been a test on the world. A test for large and small businesses and a test for everyone at home and work.
For us at StrategiQ, the pandemic offered an opportunity to choose how we wanted to reshape our company. We chose to make friends and support those businesses that we were working with and ensure they had everything they needed from us. We ensured they knew they had a partner aligned and focused on helping them through the challenges but to also find new opportunities for them. We rallied as a team and whilst there were some tough decisions to make, they were made knowing that it was for the best for our people and clients.
That said, internally there were some challenges. There were areas of our business we had taken for granted and chosen to neglect or even ignore, given the pace of our growth and how busy we were, which now I finally had time to deal with.
Like lots of business owners I’ve spoken to over recent weeks, the reality isn’t as bad as what they’d expected or planned for. In most cases, they did the same as us, restructured, refocused, replanned and galvanised their teams to get back to the basics. Have a strategy, take care of their people, take care of their customers and work hard as a group/unit to deliver on your promises. Our business plan never stopped. We never stopped where we were going – we adapted it to suit what the business needs now. There was a lot to get done but “The One” thing I committed to everyone in the company back in April was that by September I would ensure we had the right people in the right seats.
Our values have never been more important and every decision we made was based on:
- Are we being AMBITIOUS?
- Are we CARING for our people and clients?
- Are we thinking COMMERCIALLY?
- Are we demonstrating EXPERTISE?
These values and my commitment to the company sparked the #expertise recruitment campaign. I knew there would be marketing experts all over the country looking for a safe, ambitious and successful agency to join. I knew we could be more flexible with home working and with offices in Suffolk/London/Midlands we could accommodate most of the country. I also knew we had an agency and client base that would attract this talent. So we set about finding those new members now ready to move on and start the next chapter of their career.
Although it’s still running, the campaign did exactly what we needed it to and helped us find a selection of incredible marketers, with a further few joining in the coming months.
So this month we welcome a whole new level of expertise to an already brilliant team. The restructure has created a new marketing performance team solely focused on reviewing our clients’ performance daily, weekly, monthly ensuring data supports all decisions. Our client services team has been enhanced with our new Head Of Strategy and some very experienced account directors and managers. And finally 3 additions to our web development team including a focused QA tester & analyst.
Please welcome:
- Leah Crabtree – Social Media Specialist
- Jordan Bambridge – Account Manager
- Josh Crawford – Senior Data and Analytics Strategist
- Charles Salmon – Senior Website Tester & QA Analyst
- Ollie Kmiecik – Account Director
- Dafydd Lewis – Head of Strategy
- Roshan Gurung – Developer
- Sophie Coe – Social Media Executive
We recently hosted our quarterly strategy day where we set the direction and vision for the next 12 months as a team. Looking around the room I’ve never been more confident that we have the right people in the right seats with a common set of values and beliefs.
Our #Expertise campaign is still running as there are still some critical roles we need to fill, so have a look at our careers page and get in touch if you think your values are aligned.