AND DIGITAL (Formerly the Lever)

Background

Tom Cheesewright and Jack Carpenter, both successful independent PR and marketing communications executives, formed a new venture combining the content-focused skills of marketing communications with digital design and technology to create a modern, measurable, approach to marketing. Tom and Jack:

• Set up a new company, known as The Lever, to pioneer this concept in June 2008
• Based the new agency in Lever Street – hence the name – in the heart of Manchester
• Branded their approach Intelligent, Content- Driven, Marketing (ICDM)
• Developed and offered to clients a suite of services including website design, lead generation programmes and online marketing campaigns
• Achieved £60k of turnover in their first six months, made a small profit and operated with no bank borrowings

Both Tom and Jack were acutely aware of the limitations of their ‘two man band’. They wanted to capitalise fully on digital marketing opportunities – and recognised that there were gaps in their knowledge of how to run a successful high growth company. They decided to seek help from the NWDA High Growth programme.

Support     

Signed up in January 2009 as a start-up. Received five days of specialist high growth coaching and mentoring support from a coach with in depth expertise in services marketing.
Working with their coach Tom and Jack:

• Developed a picture of what they wanted their future to look like by building a vision of the business in 2012. Identified the breakthroughs needed to achieve a turnover of £500k in less than three years.
• Refined and reaffirmed their ICDM proposition into a real point of difference when compared with other digital marketing agencies – a ‘must have’ for a high growth company
• Recognised the need to secure some funding very quickly. They developed an Investment Prospectus and approached both institutions and individuals who might be interested in investing in the business
• Quickly secured bank finance – a 7 years loan facility - and approached several potential private backers
• Entered into discussions with And Partners Ltd – a leading Manchester based marketing agency – about the possibility of offering high quality digital marketing services to their key clients. It quickly became clear that there were real synergies between the two businesses – and, via a relationship with And Partners, Tom and Jack could overcome some of the constraints that had restricted their growth and achieve their vision of creating a truly high growth digital agency focused on ‘intelligent content-driven marketing’.

Outcomes    

• The creation of a new business And Digital – a collaborative venture with And Partners. The new venture was to be 40% owned by Tom and Jack and 60% by And Partners.
  The new business went live in June 2009
• £140k of revenues in its first two months of trading – more than The Lever had achieved in the whole of the previous 12 months! And Digital is now on course for revenues of over £1 million in the first full year of trading
• Secured major contracts from several blue chip companies such as Village Hotels and Accor Services
• Recruited three people – Designer, Senior Designer and Account Manager to cope with the volume of work
• Tom and Jack are now working largely on the business – rather than just in the business – having delegated daily administrative tasks to others in order to focus on building up the client base
• Together with And Partners, relocated into new premises in Waulk Mill just outside Manchester city centre
• The company now has real value in its own right – it is not dependent on one or two key individuals