Kevin Price, Host of the Price of Business on Bloomberg’s Home in Houston, Business Radio 1110 AM KTEK recently interviewed Mark Rushworth, Head of Search for Blue Logic Web. With over 14 years’ experience in sales, account management and front line design and development production, he has worked across all industries and pitched to clients from multinationals to sole traders.
Tell me about your firm (number of employees, location, type of companies you work with, etc.).
Established in 2007, Blue Logic Web is a specialist web design, development and marketing agency delivering creative design and marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes and industries throughout the UK. Blue Logic Web is a division of Blue Logic, an IT support company with over 40 staff.
Tell us your story about the lengths you have gone to get a customer?
On one occasion the new client was driving hard to reduce costs of a new ecommerce solution and to impress upon him value and the investment required I took the shirt off my back and gave it to them stating I can’t go any lower but I can give you the shirt off my back.
We got the job.
Do you know of other examples of the lengths businesses have gone through to get customers?
Working with a larger agency we were asked to help pitch for the development work needed on a project for a leading denim brand. The work was unpaid and took months and in the end we didn’t win it despite being given assurances.
At a previous agency the Managing Director was heavily invested in the appearance of being a serial entrepreneur. To this end he would repeatedly take equity deals on new projects with no investment from the customer. Every project undertaken on this premise was a nightmare with a significant majority never seeing the light of day despite our best efforts. This hurt his business and despite being booked full of work, he was unable to pay salaries.
What lessons, if any, do you derive from these stories?
· Know your overhead and minimum profit margin required to maintain business success so you can deliver best value
· Don’t cut your own throat to get a job
· Some people just want to feel like they’ve gotten a deal
· Don’t free pitch – it’s not worth it even for big brand clients.
· The work isn’t secured until the money is in your account
· Beware of the carrot stick approach and never offer a discount based on unsigned future work
Contact information: Provide website and other information that we can use on the radio (Business Talk 1110 AM and on our news site).
http://www.bluelogic.co.uk/web-services
