Being made redundant brings many people to a crossroads in their lives. Having just been laid off from an engineering company, Andrew Randall’s crossroads was literal, as well as metaphorical.
“I was driving through Leeds thinking ‘What am I going to do?’,” he recalls. “I thought to myself, I’m young, I’ve not got many commitments – I should start up my own company.
“I was driving past a pub called the 11th Hour and I thought ‘11th Hour Marketing – that’ll work!’”
Having completed a marketing degree between 1996 and 2000, Randall felt it was a natural progression to go it alone once he was made redundant. The start-up process, often a fraught period for new entrepreneurs, went pleasingly smoothly for 11th Hour Marketing, partially due to the industry contacts accumulated by Randall.
“On the first day I had a bank account sorted out, limited status and clients, because I could phone around and speak to people I knew,” he explains. “We had paying clients from day one, so we never really had to worry about income coming in.”
Randall set up an office in a local business generator for the princely sum of £35 a week. With equipment such as desks and chairs provided for the business and an instant income, 11th Hour Marketing managed to avoid the financial worries that consume many start-ups.
Yorkshire Business Link, according to Randall, is “very switched on”, and the only external funding required was a Small Firms Loan Guarantee arrangement a year into the business.
This lack of start-up capital highlights the benefits 11th Hour Marketing has reaped from productive networking. Randall admits to attending four networking events a week, which could appear arduous to some, but has provided the platform upon which the business has flourished.
Having initially targeted small firms, 11th Hour Marketing is now focussed on winning contracts with councils and the NHS.
“About 80% of our business is through networking and referrals,” explains Randall. “We are always networking at various events. Initially, people I knew within the Chartered Institute of Marketing could give me business or pass my details on. Through that, we had four clients immediately.”
The first full-time member of staff joined after three months, with six employees now on board. Randall reveals that after the initial appointments, the second year proved difficult recruitment-wise.
“When we started doing telesales work for clients, recruitment was a nightmare,” he admits. “People don’t want to do telesales for their entire career and we ended up with a lot of students and people who didn’t have much commitment.
“I tried to delegate as much as I could but the company started losing a bit of direction, so I had to bring some things back under my control.”
Unsurprisingly for a marketing firm, the business has generated some positive coverage in the local and national media. Randall has credited this, combined with word-of-mouth recommendations, for convincing clients of the effectiveness of the relatively young company.
11th Hour Marketing specialises in research and direct marketing. Although the business offers consultancy, the main income is from direct marketing and telesales.
Randall feels his business stands out from other marketing agencies by offering clients reports on campaigns, rather than mere statistics on the number of people a campaign has reached.
“We do test projects to start with and take on board feedback,” he explains. “If the test project doesn’t work, we don’t just say goodbye, we come up with other suggestions, and so they haven’t wasted a huge proportion of their budget.”
Randall reports the business has grown 40% a year since its creation, with turnover “well into the six figures, which is nice.”
A second office has opened in Basingstoke, with Randall spending most of his time there due to the amount of clients in the Thames Valley. However, it’s proved cost effective to keep the northern office.
“We had a lot of clients in the Thames Valley – we were doing a lot of travelling and it made a lot more sense to have a base here,” he says. “But it’s cheaper to do the work up north, the employment costs are less, so we do a lot of our work in the northern office, the southern office is more of a satellite for networking and marketing ourselves.”
As for the future, Randall has other business ideas, admitting that he enjoys the start-up process.
“I’m hoping to double 11th Hour Marketing in size over the next two to three years and then keep it at that,” he explains. “I want to do some other ventures, I want to leave someone I trust to run this business and for me to go one and start up some new companies.
“I’ve enjoyed the start-up part of it, the first three years have been very enjoyable.”
