How Metin Built His Start-Up Trade Business By Building His Brand And Marketing During A Pandemic.
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• Ideal Clients
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Introduce yourself and your Trade and Construction business.
Hi, my name is Metin.
I'm the chief executive officer of Direct Eco Solutions.
We're an environmental solutions company that finds environmentally friendly solutions to business problems.
Our primary business for the last two years has really been centred around supporting businesses find their way during the pandemic, which is obviously a business interruption event of a magnitude that nobody's ever seen.
Our specialism has been disinfecting and using infection control measures to keep businesses open, but more importantly, within an environmentally friendly way using eco-friendly disinfectants that don't damage properties or have adverse effects for humans or animals.
Describe how it feels to run a busy trade and construction business.
Running a busy business for any CEO is complicated at any time.
But running a busy business that is one, new and two, trying to find its way during a pandemic, is even harder.
With all the normal business issues that you have with running a business, marketing, social media, setting up a website, getting through to your clients, you've now got the added pressure of the uncertainty of trying to offer products and services during a pandemic.
When other businesses aren’t operating in normal times, they've got more things to consider than ever before, more issues to contend with.
You have to find a way of getting through to those clients in a very unique way when they're very pressurized themselves.
So yes, as an individual business, we've got issues that any business would have but I think quite uniquely for the last two years, we've kind of had the synergy of all businesses having the same issue, which is how to try to find our way through Covid.
Specifically, what challenges were you facing as a start-up Trade and Construction Business?
As a new start-up, obviously you have all the same issues that you would have with any business starting up.
Finding your marketplace, getting your brand and your name out there, explaining to customers what you do.
What was really unique for us, being a start-up Trade, quite literally we set the company up in February, and March was locked down - we were trying to get through to customers when they've got so many other pressing things that they're contemplating.
Like I've mentioned earlier in one of my previous comments was that we've got a specific product and a unique service, which is infection control but in an environmentally friendly way.
While one would think that that was perfect, you know, on time you've got product and a service that isn't required right now, it's getting through to clients that never had to contemplate that particular issue before.
They’ve never had to understand what environmentally friendly disinfection is.
They've never had to worry about infection control unless your business is within the medical industry or pharmaceutical industry.
Suddenly we found ourselves two years ago in this position where every business type, every business owner had to understand very quickly what infection control meant, what disease control meant, what disinfection meant.
What was different between that and cleaning?
And that was the challenge.
The challenge was to bring an entire business community into understanding a new topic, a new concept, a new way of doing things, where they’ve never had to contemplate that at a time when they were feeling a squeeze as a business as well, and all the uncertainty that went with whether they were going to be open.
Brand and marketing. What were you struggling with?
Before we started working with Marshmallow, with regards to marketing, obviously we had the initial issue of being a brand new business.
So this is a brand new name into a marketplace where you're trying to find your feet and trying to find your market share.
As mentioned, we've got this unique problem where we're in Covid, and we're trying to bring information to a brand new set of clients who’ve never had to contemplate these kinds of issues, products or services before.
The marketing problem and the branding problem that we had was people understanding that we were an environmental solutions company, not a cleaning company.
The difference between cleaning and disinfection, because at that point, realistically in everybody's mind, it was all one.
If you were contracting a cleaning company, your anticipation was that they were cleaning and as part of that cleaning process, disinfection might be, or would be, taking place.
That's not necessarily the case.
For us, we had to really get through to our clients to understand the difference between either them cleaning their businesses or contracting a cleaning company to clean their businesses, and what we were offering.
If we got it wrong, the risk was that quite literally we would be brushed off by every customer that we'd approached because they'd say to us, we're either doing cleaning in-house or we've got external cleaners that we contract to come in and clean the business, but that's not what we were offering.
It was really important to make sure that through our work with Marshmallow, we could get that branding to distinguish us from a cleaning company and that marketing message that this was a service that was needed and it was quite different and unique to what they were currently utilising or used to.
How did your Trade business come to know about Marshmallow?
I came to know of Marshmallow through networking.
Every business owner, every CEO knows the power and importance of networking.
It's your network's network that you're trying to tap into either for potential clients and pipeline or for resources that you as a business owner might need.
I came to hear of Marshmallow from a recommendation from a networking group that I was in, and the work that they had done from a branding perspective and a marketing perspective for their clients really stood out to us.
We reached out to find out exactly what services were available, what the working regime was because as a very busy CEO, starting a brand new company, what's vital is time management.
You know that you have to work on all of these individual elements to build your business up.
But how much time can you really devote to each one of those tasks, and more importantly, do you have the necessary skillset and expertise to deliver each one of those elements?
We're always looking for partnerships and with branding and marketing it was vitally important that we got that message on point.
Where did we start with your Trade and Construction brand and marketing?
Once I contacted Marshmallow and we decided that we were going to have our initial consultation to see exactly what could be done, how it's delivered and what is required from us, we were very happy with the proposal and what we heard about how Marshmallow work with regards to marketing and branding.
We initially did an ideal client workshop, which helps you break down who your ideal clients are and what they need, and then we subscribed to the monthly support package, whereby we have monthly meetings with a set agenda, topics that we go through and then a plan from month to month on how are we going to complete those projects and review those projects.
What is an ideal client workshop?
The ideal client workshop was actually quite a revelation.
Never having done anything like that before you think that you know who your clients are, you know who you're targeting for your company, your products and your services.
But in all honesty until you actually do that hour and a half ideal client interview where you're looking at who your ideal clients are, you don't quite understand what you need to consider.
We looked at issues like their pain points.
Understanding of client's pain points are really important because while you might think that all basic clients are looking for the same thing, a reliable service provider or a reliable product, at correct prices etc, it actually changes nuance from client to client.
So understanding those pain points was critical to us because even though it was the same product and the same service that we were going to market for these different sectors, each client's specific requirements, understanding and pain points became very evidently clear to us after the one and a half hour workshop were quite different and needed a slightly different nuanced approach as well.
Why was this Ideal Client information important to know for your Trade and Construction marketing?
There were several benefits to the ideal client workshop and then the resulting information, knowledge, and more importantly, the report you get out from it.
It really focuses you and guides you as to what your needs are from your client's perspective.
We're always looking at the needs from the business perspective, but we're never really considering the clients.
Then there's a benefit, a knock-on benefit, to understanding your clients at that degree.
Once we've got that report back, what it really saved us was time.
Initially, that was the biggest saving was the time that it will take you to try to get through to those clients.
Now you've got this exacting methodology that you can apply to say this is where my client is going to be at this day, at this time, and this is the way they’re going to want to digest that information.
So ideal client workshop done. What was the next step?
One of the other services that we also had was a Brand MOT, which really helped us to understand as a new business, where we were going to try to brand ourselves, how we were going to brand ourselves and what that message within the branding was going to be.
What difference is this making to your disinfection business?
Having subscribed to what Marshmallow offer with regards to the ideal client workshop and then doing the Brand MOT, the natural progression for us then was actually to sustain that momentum and work on a monthly basis.
That monthly package was really quite vital to us.
Again, not only because we were a new business at the time, but having identified who our ideal clients are, having identified what we wanted to do from a branding perspective across our website and social media, what was really important then was to work on pipeline.
You've done all this hard work to get a new business up and running, you bought your equipment, you're ready to roll, you've got your clothing, you've got your brand identity, but it doesn't really end there because once you've got that foundation and you need to start pipeline, you need to constantly work on it.
For us specifically within the sector that we're in and what was going on at the time, that focus from the ideal client workshop and the branding gave us a fantastic start, but it was a changing game.
We needed to make sure that we were staying on top of it and we were reviewing it.
The monthly program, what that enabled us to do was identify key elements one month, have a plan of what we were going to do and the support that we would get from Marshmallow on those particular elements.
We would then take that away and we would get a report back to say what we were working on - an agenda.
We would work on it for that month, touch base on it and review it and make sure that we were happy with it and implement it, or if we felt that it needed to be changed, change it again.
But what that really gave us was a really good foundation that was external to us.
So you're being reviewed.
It's almost like you've got a critical friend.
If things did change for us, if our ideal clients changed, so we've got new sectors or we found ourselves being pulled in a particular direction, or we got feedback from a client that we've already identified but things have changed for those, we had a way of feeding that back into the monthly meeting, and then you’d get that constant Brand MOT.
So not only do you have the external critical friend, putting that agenda together, reviewing it for you, you're working on it and it becomes your business practice.
What did you find were the biggest benefits for your Trade and Construction marketing was in meeting us regularly?
The real benefit of the monthly sessions was the power hour and it was quite literally that.
It was a power hour of ideas focused on the key elements for you for that month.
Now, sometimes a project is much bigger than a month so it would roll over, but that was the whole benefit of the agenda.
That was the whole benefit of having that external critical friend in Marshmallow.
Because what we did is we knew that for that power hour, we were going to focus on these key things and make sure that we made a decision as to were we going to see it through, was it going to just end, did it need to change, was it complete or did it need to roll over.
If it was rolling over was that beneficial to us, was it taking too long and therefore again, was it worth doing.
The power hour really gives you that focus and again, as busy business people, the biggest thing is your pull on your time.
An hour in business, it sounds a little amount of time, but actually it can be very, very productive.
If it's focused and if it's directed and the agenda and the ability to make sure that we had that external person looking at what we were doing in that power hour meant that the management team within the business knew that when we were on that call there was no phones, there was no emails, there was no external distractions and it was just really, really focused on those topics as a business to make business decisions as to whether this was being completed, it was being dropped or it had been completed and then reviewing the success of it.
And that helps you continue month on month of those ideas and develop as a business.
And more importantly, give us the benefit of the pipeline progression that we are looking for.
Thoughts on our quality of work and service, Metin?
As a start-up business when you're looking at your initial funding, that's really quite limited.
You have to be very, very careful where you place that money.
Once we started getting information coming through and the way that it was presented to us, the digestibility of that information was critical because the investment on the money side of it to engage with a company like Marshmallow is one thing, but the time investment afterwards to see results is really where your cost is.
It's very, very affordable and easy to access, the information is digestible.
They are very good at identifying what your skill sets are.
For example I'm very happy to be on social media, but in terms of posting, I'm happy to do lives.
Marshmallow developed the idea of going out and doing these lives and having this branded content and information that was assigned to me as my skillset.
My partner was also assigned a specific role because he helped develop the website and developed some of the actual branding.
He's good at using that particular software.
So again, Marshmallow quickly identified that within the management structure, you had two different sets of skills that had to be utilized for the monthly things that we were putting.
What stood out for you the most when working with us on your Trade and Construction brand and marketing?
There were several things that really, really stand out from working with Marshmallow.
Not only in terms of the professionalism of the company, but how those monthly meetings have really delivered.
There's that initial catch-up that you have with the person that just makes you feel comfortable for the session that you're about to have, but then you build up a relationship when you're working with somebody month after month, you've done the ideal client workshop, you've done the Brand MOT.
You get to know Marshmallow, you get to understand the personnel within Marshmallow, but more importantly, they get to understand you and you do work on a very, very friendly basis.
Calling that service a critical friend, wasn't just a turn of phrase, it really does feel like you have a friend within the business that is external to you, that will review you and hold you accountable and hold you accountable in some unique ways sometimes as well.
And that's really important.
I mean the nickname of the session is ‘get shit done’, and that's exactly what you need to do as a business.
You need to get that stuff done and they take no prisoners.
That's that accountability bit, but it's done in a very friendly way.
It's done in a very professional way.
It's done in a way that benefits you.
So, yeah, it's been a unique experience working with Marshmallow over a year, and it's really helped us take on board some of those strategies and implement them internally.
Would you recommend us to other Trade & Construction businesses for their brand and marketing?
Having worked with Marshmallow for over a year, it's easy to recommend them because I can speak from a position of authority as a business owner as to the individual benefits that I saw for my skillset, my understanding and developing our business.
What I've seen for our business as a whole, what other colleagues have benefited with that support and the workstreams that they're working on.
When you have that kind of a success story where as a new business, trying to have your identity, trying to find your foot hold and get that market share, you've had a business partner like Marshmallow behind you, and you've had all of those services.
The benefit of those services are conversions in pipeline.
Ultimately that's what every business to business transaction should be.
If it doesn't benefit your business from a time saving, time management, money management or conversion point, then why are you engaging with it as a business?
There's no reason for you to be paying out business money for services that do one of those things or all of those things for you.
When it came to recommending Marshmallow to other businesses, it was very easy to recommend them as a business for the service that they provide.
It was very easy to recommend them for the personnel that you're going to be working with and the relationship that you build.
So it's an absolute, no brainer for us as a business to recommend Marshmallow services, because I've got a track record that I can show other businesses and say, we were doing this we changed it to this.
We were here, now we're here.
This is what our customers were giving us feedback initially and this is the feedback that we're getting from customers now.
Once you've got that track record with a business, all you can do is refer them.
I would highly recommend Marshmallow and all of the services that they provide to any of the Trade businesses out there, because there's a specific skill set that Marshmallow have that realistically most Trade businesses won't have internally with their staff.
And it's the bit that really helps you get your message across to your customers.
That your customers understand who you are and it gets them to engage with you.
Since working with us, what’s been your biggest win?
We quickly identified the educational sector but specifically the nursery sector has been quite critical to our business development.
It was quite challenging because like I have said, everyone had found themselves in a business environment that was pandemic driven rather than just our normal business needs.
We found that we had quite a lot of knock back initially.
People thinking that we were a cleaning company and not quite understanding the uniqueness of our service.
After things like the ideal client work, the Brand MOT and the monthly strategy sessions, we quickly identified where we needed to change our literature.
What we needed to do was to change it from a generic document to sector specific.
That translated into really early pipeline success and we converted a few nurseries.
Once we had got those clients on board because of the changes that we had made that have been driven by Marshmallow’s branding and marketing exercises, we then were told that really what we now want to do is capture these happy clients with testimonials.
We got video testimonials, written testimonials, testimonials to our platforms.
So Trustpilot, Facebook, Google, but more importantly, we reviewed the documents that we had created because of the feedback from Marshmallow and we added those testimonials into those sector specific documents.
We added those testimonials onto the specific page that was catering for schools and nurseries, and what that gave our clients was a degree of confidence when they come across information that we've got the expertise for the sector that they're in.
We're working with clients just like them and that they've got positive things to say about our products and services.
There were several benefits to the ideal client workshop and then the resulting information, knowledge, and more importantly, the report you get out from it. It really focuses you and guides you as to what your needs are from your client's perspective.
We're always looking at the needs from the business perspective, but we're never really considering the clients.
Then there's a benefit to understanding your clients to that degree.
So once we've got that report back, what it really saved us was time.
Initially, that was the biggest saving was the time that it will take you to try to get through to those clients.
Now you've got this exacting methodology that you can apply to say this is where my client is going to be at this day, at this time, and this is the way they're going to wants to digest that information.
Working with them has been an absolute dream because we've seen the results in our pipeline, and it's got us into a sector and expanded into a sector that was quite critical for our business.
Let’s sum up. 3 words to describe our Trade and Construction Brand and Marketing Agency…
Solutions focused.
Educational.
No Bullshit.
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