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Balancing Business and Employee Needs – a conversation with entrepreneur Emma Sansom
0 Playsin 12 hours
What are the commercial benefits of looking after your employees as well as you look after your clients?
Emma Sansom is the founder and CEO at Flamingo Marketing Strategies.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Emma and host Michael Millward discuss their shared approach to employee management.
They discuss every stage of the employer employee relationship, from hiring to retiring
- Recruitment and Selection
- Objective setting
- Performance management
- Training and Development
- Pay and Rewards
- Parting company
Emma explains the commercial benefits that her company gains from balancing the demands of clients, the objectives of the business, and the ambitions and aspirations of her team members.
More information about Emma Sansom and Michael Millward is available at abeceder.
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr.
Introduction to 'The Independent Minds'
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:22
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysida. Today, my guest is Emma Sansom, the Founder and Managing Director of Flamingo Marketing Strategies.
00:00:35
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencastr.
Benefits of Using Zencastr
00:00:42
Speaker
Zencastr is the all in one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, YouTube, music. I could go on Zencastr really does make making content so easy.
00:01:03
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com. All the details are in the description.
Podcast Mission: Provoking Thought
00:01:12
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful a Zencastr is for making podcasts, we should make one.
00:01:18
Speaker
One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think,
00:01:30
Speaker
but we are hoping to make you think. Today, my guest, Independent Mind, is Emma Sansom, who is the founder and managing director of Flamingo Marketing Strategies. Hello, Emma. Hello.
00:01:44
Speaker
How are you doing today? I'm good, thank you. how are you? Not too bad at all, not too bad at all. I'm just hoping that I pronounce your surname correctly. Oh, it's perfect. Yeah,
Emma Sansom's Marketing Background
00:01:53
Speaker
no worries. Please could we start by you just giving a little bit of an overview of your career and how you ended up setting up your own business? Yes, of course. so um i studied marketing at university, ah which I graduated in 2012. And I wanted to sort of get into different various companies and and learn a lot about marketing.
00:02:14
Speaker
During that time, I started working for a marketing agency that i absolutely loved. And I realized that I got a lot of joy out of helping lots of small businesses grow. So um when I decided eventually to set up my own marketing agency, a few years after that, I knew that I wanted to work with, like I said, a small number of clients, and small businesses that you can really put a lot of effort into and and see results and really feel like you're part of
Unique Approach of Flamingo Marketing Strategies
00:02:37
Speaker
their team. It was in 2019 I set up Flamingham Marketing Strategies Limited. We work with a very small number of of clients from all different industries. Our main sort of rule is that we won't work with our clients' competitors, so that enables our clients to stand out and they basically feel like we are their marketing department. So it's an all-in, done-for-you agency. Now, why flamingo marketing? Because the flamingo, beautiful animal, has to be said, bright pink when it eats the right type of food. But if I'm correct, a flamingo eats with its head upside down. Why did you decide to call your company Flamingo?
00:03:14
Speaker
It's a great question. um And the answer is probably not what you expect. So it's not because I've got an obsessive love of the pink bird. It's really not that at all. So when I was trying to think of a company name, my parents who had ah an accountancy practice and then were like, oh, why don't you go for something like Sansom Associates? And I was like, absolutely not. That is far too boring and not memorable. But I was trying to think of something that would stand out.
00:03:35
Speaker
And I remember lying in bed. It was probably about three o'clock in the morning. I couldn't think of this company name. But I'd got a little card from ah an ex-colleague from a previous role. And it had on the front of it be a flamingo and a flock of pigeons. It was a lovely little pink card. I've still got it on my my unit behind my desk today. and inside it, she wrote, keep being the flamingo. And I thought, well, Flamingo marketing strategies, it stands out. It's, a you know, memorable. People often refer to me as the Flamingo lady, which I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it gets me, it keeps me in top of people's minds when they see Flamingo um stuff everywhere because it often comes about in the summer. So it's actually, it was a really good choice. And it's definitely a given us a lot of free advertising. I'll give it that.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yes, it's ah it's not the reason that I was expecting, but it is a damn good reason and a really great idea to be the flamingo, a bright pink bird in a flock of pigeons, which are basically grey, which anybody, you're too young to remember this, but in the 80s, you would go into cocktail bars and those sorts of things, and the decor would be pink and grey. It was a very 80s combination. We imagine our office decor is very pink and grey as well with a bit of blue thrown in from previous branding. But we have, I think the guys counted, including flamingos on the shirts of them as well. 804 was what they counted, flamingos in our office. by All the yeah gifts that I've been given over the years from clients and friends and family. from glasses to mugs to coasters, they've all made their way in there. So yeah, it's it's very branded. You can spot you in the right place from the minute you step through the door, which is good. It is very good. Yeah, quite a
Client Management and Employee Satisfaction
00:05:18
Speaker
reason. And you also mentioned that you work with various different organizations in different industries. So never working with a competitor of another client, which is great. So what type of organizations, let's get a bit specific about the types of organizations that you're working with.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, so we work with um a lot of mainly business to business companies. We only have probably about 10% of our clients are business to consumer. We work with companies that are in manufacturing, automotive, logistics, pharma. We have a a real mixture, but we found that manufacturing and construction and and those sorts of companies are much better for us in terms of we're very good at knowing kids to target and how to get them in front of their right audiences. And like I said, that the sort of companies that are targeting businesses or business to business to business, depends how tech you want me to get, or business to business to consumer. So it depends. But we don't really like to target direct consumer just because of the amount of work and therefore the investment that comes into working with an agency like us where we do everything under one roof. course you just started in 2019 which makes you about five years old now and you've already got six employees what's unusual in in some ways with my hr hat on is the way in which you've developed a way of modeling or developed a way of managing your business so that it works for your clients but also works for your employees your team members and This is one of things that intrigues me because for a small business, you are doing a lot of big company type activities. So when we first met and you were telling me what it was that you did in terms of managing your team, you've got organizational objectives which are focused around your client. that then gets transferred to the individuals and the way in which you manage your people is very much focused around what those people need to deliver in order to make the client happy and could you explain a little bit about how that works
00:07:26
Speaker
Yes, of course. So, um you know, one of our key factors that i really focus on for our clients is that relationships is a massive thing and and building those relationships with my team. So i think, you you know, you all have, everyone's walked into a workplace where they can tell that, you know, the people that are working there absolutely hate their jobs. They're very, very miserable. they They're not particularly well treated. Like we've all worked somewhere like that or we know someone who works in a place like that. So for me, I wanted to make sure that,
00:07:53
Speaker
my team um feel so, so important. You know, like you said, we are a team of six, um and every single person in there, as is important as everyone else, including myself, like there's no hierarchical sort of feeling to the way that we run the business. So um my view is that if I can make sure that my team are really happy, and I invest the time and money and respect and all of the things that they're after in them, then hopefully they won't go anywhere. Because the like I said, you know, we only work with a small number of clients. And, you know, I've left the office today to come home to record this podcast, because one of our clients, I've just taken him out for lunch.
00:08:30
Speaker
And he's now sat in the office with all of my team, and doing some strategy and doing some work on his social media. And I think if, you know, my team weren't happy and weren't in ingrained in like his sort of way of working and really understanding his business, then or if they were sorry, and they left, then someone else has got to come in and learn all of that. So I want my team to to really treat all of our clients businesses as if they were their own business, or they were our business, which is also one of my company values, which we We, you know, i performance score my team against. So if they're not actually behaving in a certain way or investing the time and effort into the clients, then, you know, we have to review that and see if we can get it back on track. One of the things that you mentioned to me was this performance is important, but you're doing it slightly differently to the way in which many smaller employers would do. When I'm working with a wide range of businesses in the same sort of way as you do, but with, from an h r perspective,
00:09:29
Speaker
when i'm talking to them about performance management they're constantly talking about outcomes and outcomes from the perspective of the organization not the outcome that the employee the person needs and not about how you plan the performance that you need and how you bring The two together, we need this performance, the employee needs to contribute this, but also needs to receive this as an outcome. And answer that question, well, what's in it for them? But you have quite a detailed sort performance planning process and a performance review process.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. In fact, I had two one-to-one yesterday with two of my staff members that haveve sort of come up to their probation period. And I think what I've done in like those one-to-ones, so I mean, I have ah a monthly one-to-one with everybody anyway. They're normally 15 minutes. Every ah quarter, I have a slightly longer one, which is where I do the performance scoring stuff, which I'll talk about in a second. But in terms of their own personal outcomes, which you've just mentioned, that happens in a one to one with me where we really sort of look at what they want to get out of working for Flamingo. And it's really interesting because, you know, a lot of people would assume that people want more money, like that's obviously going to be the go to, right? Okay, well, if they've been there a year or five or 10,
00:10:49
Speaker
They want to be earning X amount of money. But actually, what I you know i find from my team, and I'm not going to name names, but they'll all know who I'm talking about. You know, there's people, one particular team member said, you know, i want to drive a BMW one day and I want to wear suits. And that's my my thing that I, you know, I want to be ah good, a high enough earner and like feel really important in my job. And that's what gets him excited about coming to work every day. and Another one, he's got family and he wants to make sure he's got time off and he could actually have like a two week block in the summer holidays where he can actually switch off. But, you know, it just shows how much they care about the the company because his view on that is that he wouldn't want to leave anybody, you know, struggling because he's like, you know, I have to give him away here. But he's my main designer. He was like, I don't want to you know, cause a gap in the workload um or come back to to chaos. And the fact that he cares enough to to not book two weeks off yet.
00:11:41
Speaker
just shows how much cares about
Aligning Employee Goals with Company Objectives
00:11:42
Speaker
the business. But obviously my plan for him for next summer is that we make sure that he knows he can have those those two weeks off. You know, another thing that people really talk to me about, they want to feel important, and they want to feel valued and respected. So um responsibilities is another thing that we talk about. So every one-to-one that I've had recently, Very interestingly, they've all sort of got their specialist skills that they bring to my team, but every single one of them, at least 20% of their workload, they would love to be doing something else. So, you know, they've all told me that one wants to get into reporting and one wants to get into some more creative stuff. and
00:12:15
Speaker
you know the designer wants to learn about building and website pages out and do some more stuff on that so it's been really interesting because it means that if i can keep them stimulated in in a sense of like what their workload looks like and that they're excited about coming to work every day because they've got their main sort of thing that they do and they're very good at but also they get to get involved with other things um it might be that they want to lead a particular project of something that i'm planning on launching um it might be that they want to be the one filming my talks like whatever it is that they want to do I'm not just pigeonholing people because of their skills. And what that means then is that the one-to-ones go really well because we sit down and we say, right, okay, 12 months from now, these are all things you want to be doing. This is what you want in terms of like whether it be more holiday or more time off and stuff like that.
00:13:01
Speaker
I've never had anybody ask me for a pay rise because I go into my one-to-ones and I tell them what I think they're worth and what I want to put them onto and based on how they perform. and But then, you know, i mean, one of those conversations resulted in one of my team saying, like filling up and asking if you can give me a hug, you know, that sort of response is because,
00:13:20
Speaker
I see the value in them. Why on earth would I not want them to be paid what they're worth? you know, I've been in companies like that where bad bosses or people that don't treat you or, you know, pay you what you're worth. I never wanted anybody to ever have to ask me for for more money because I've always thought, right, well...
00:13:36
Speaker
You're worth this. And then I've said, right, a year from now, what what would you like to be earning when when I've already given them a pay rise or whatever that that situation might be? So they can say, right, OK, well, that's where I want to be. So then I say, OK, so what I need from you, like you've just said earlier, and what i need from you is X, Y and Z. So we all feel like we're winning and everybody's getting something out of it.
00:13:55
Speaker
I noticed you used um the term pigeonhole. you Don't want a pigeonhole at anyone. There was no pun intended there, but I'm definitely going to using it. People do get pigeonholed in lots of organisations, large ones and small ones. And, you know, if you are the person who feels pigeonholed, I joined as somebody with this experience, so they're never going to promote me, no matter how good I am or... you know, I joined with this type of experience. So they're looking for me to do more than I want to do because I've got this life at home that I want to live. And expectations get don't match. When your expectations don't match, then you've got a recipe for disaster, especially with employees and work. But what you seem to be doing is far from pigeonholing them, i'm going to you're going to want to borrow this.
00:14:45
Speaker
But you're flamingo-pidg-holing them. you know as is that You're creating flamingos within your flock of flamingos because you're actually allowing them to develop as individuals within what your organization needs. And we try and do the same sort of thing here at Abbasida. And my attitude when I'm, when I'm explaining this to clients, I often so say, you're going to have this conversation with people where you're going to say where do you see yourself in a year's time, five years time? What do you want to be doing when you retire? What's the the life plan that you've got?
00:15:24
Speaker
is that you have to be honest with people and say, actually, what you want to achieve, I can't give you that within the timeframe that you want it to achieve Yeah, that's an example that well. Yeah, we're either going to have to change an awful lot of things or change the whole strategy of the organization to fulfill your objectives.
00:15:44
Speaker
Or we're going to have to be very adult and honest with each other and say, you know, at some point in the next 6, 12, 18 months, you're going to start looking for a job.
00:15:54
Speaker
yeah Many employers would say, well, I don't want them to leave. But my attitude is, well, my view is, well, why would you want them to stay? yeah Exactly, exactly that. Why would you want someone who isn't growing, isn't happy, isn't developing, isn't contributing to your business in the way that you need them to contribute to it? Why would you want them to stay when actually what they should be doing is going off and pursuing their aspirations, their ambitions? And then perhaps one day you might actually bump into them and want them to come back.
Open Communication and Employee Value
00:16:23
Speaker
No, I definitely agree with that. I think
00:16:25
Speaker
Being honest and open is something that um I really, you know, I value in my team. They're very open and honest with me and I'm very open and honest with them. um And like, you know, we've all had experiences where we've had bosses that we're afraid of. You're afraid to speak to, you're afraid to ask for anything. You're afraid to ask for a day off or say you're not feeling very well to go home. Like, I don't have sickness in my team. like they are They're not faking illness because they hate their jobs. It just doesn't work like that. But if they are poorly and you know they want to go home or or they they text me or ring me in the morning, I know it's genuine because we have that open, honest conversation. and
00:17:01
Speaker
They're just happy at work. i don't I don't worry about it. But, you know, going back to what you're saying, I had that situation happen to me, a team member, where this particular team member wanted to work from home a few days a week. And that's not something that I do. I've never have done it. um You know, we're all in the office. We're office based.
00:17:17
Speaker
We're a creative team and we work really, really well. Like I said, we've got a client there right now, and you know, with my team building that relationship. So I said, look, that's not something I can offer. Maybe a hybrid role is something that you're more likely to want to do. And and I said, you know, these are the sorts of roles that you would be good in. And I helped and I guided. And in the end, this individual left and I gained my my graphic designer, Rich, who's just absolutely brilliant. So even though it was a shame to say goodbye to that individual and they've done a really good job, they weren't going to be fulfilled in the long run. And and like you say, it was easier to and to to just, ah you know, say that this might not be the best path for you. But every single other the person in the team that, you know, is with me now, I've got like the strongest team that I think I've ever had.
00:18:00
Speaker
They're all really committed. They work so hard. And it's because they they feel the love back from me. They feel like they're valued and and respected. And I do little nice things, little rewards. I do um something called Star of the Quarter, which I'm happy to explain if you want me to. um ah we've just hit up We've just finished our, you said it, you know five years.
00:18:20
Speaker
We've actually just turned five. you know The 3rd of June ah was our birthday. and last And the end of June was our end of our financial year. So I'd set quite a big target.
00:18:31
Speaker
where I'd wanted to hit a certain turnover. I've actually just done a talk on it in Leicester. and So yeah people would be able to find that online if they looked looked through my socials and stuff. But, you know, i wasn't the only one that celebrated and and that reward. You know, I did something nice for the team as a thank you for them to help us hit and that target. Not because they're on commission, not because they're on performance-based salaries, nothing like that. They are on set they're all full-time salary-based staff. They weren't expecting it, but they all appreciated it I'm mindful that you've got six employees now and they're the strongest team that you've had. How many people have you employed in total over those five years?
00:19:09
Speaker
Well, I was counting up the other day when I was doing my talk because i i just did a talk on from nil to half a mil in five years. And I talked about the journey that I've been on through COVID, the ups and the downs, the roller coaster ride. And I actually counted that there's been nine people that have been and
Recruitment Lessons: Attitude Over Skills
00:19:25
Speaker
gone.
00:19:25
Speaker
and Whether that be because it was just ah one of them was a temp um and COVID and all of that messed that one up. One was an ex that I employed and then we broke up. So that one messed that one up. um And the rest left either off their own back or because they didn't quite fit in there and it didn't work out. So, you know, so it took me nine fails to get six I'm the six so five absolute wins so we've got nine people that you've employed who left for one reason or another yeah and six the remaining so that's um 14 people all together okay what what are the lessons that you've learned about identifying the right people to work in your organization
00:20:06
Speaker
How long have you got? No, I'm joking. Well, you see, hiring hiring is the most important thing that any employer does. If you hire right, you you remove so many various different issues. So the first thing is never employ somebody that you are dating or someone that you would like to date. That's just a no-no, really. Don't do that again. Improvement is like one of the toughest parts of running a business. yeah And also not hiring friends and family was one of my big points. Let me tell you a little story about hiring friends and family, because there are two massive organizations in the world. One of them is called Google and the other one is called Facebook.
00:20:47
Speaker
Now, the people who work at Google know because of the recruitment culture at Google that they are the best person for that job to but work at Google because Google from day one, the two guys that set it up said we will never hire somebody just because they're friends or family. yeah The people that we employ will have demonstrated to us that they are the best person for that job. And if we can't find the best person for that job, we will leave that vacancy open.
00:21:15
Speaker
yeah yeah Now, the other company, Facebook, the people that set up Facebook recruited a lot of friends, a lot of family. It was people from the same side dorm house at at college, all this sort of stuff. yeah Now, we don't need to go into the details of any of that. All we need to say is that there was a film made about the recruitment process at one of those organizations because of all the controversies, all the conflicts, all the problems that that approach created. Yeah.
00:21:46
Speaker
Never recruit somebody just because they're a friend, they're family, they're being introduced to you by someone who is a friend. If it doesn't work out, you lose an employee, you're back to square one, but you might also lose the friend as well.
00:22:00
Speaker
They're always more difficult to manage. But always, always go for, this is the best person for this job. Not the best person who's applied. If the best person hasn't applied and all you've got is you don't never take somebody just because they are there.
00:22:17
Speaker
No, definitely. I mean, I think my my situation with employing my ex was based on the fact that it was COVID. We were living together. i just lost my part-time person because of it. My ex hated their job. and it was a good opportunity i needed i was overworked overstretched i couldn't do it all myself and i needed the help and we were bubbles and it was it was a right time right place and i tell you what it actually helped my business massively it grew i never regretted it and it was more the fact that eventually our relationship broke down and then i i lost my my partner my housemate and my employee all in the same week and it was hard um but you know i've learned my lesson from that and you know even just recently one of my really good friend. She is an incredible copywriter. She is so brilliant. She'd be brilliant in one of the the the jobs that I was recruiting for. um And I just gave her a call and i said, look, i I love the fact that you'd want to work with me, but I'm not the same in the office as I am as a friend. And I wouldn't want you to come in. And also my team, my my I call them my army of bearded men because I seem to surround myself with handsome ah bearded men. And, you know, I've got my my guys that I've got these great relationships with the really strong foundation is to have my one of my girly best friends coming in and feeling like you know i've got emma's got a spy um and not seeing this friend as somebody that's just there because they they'd be brilliant for the job so i absolutely agree with everything you've said and funnily enough i said in the talk the other day i said you know don't don't work with i said who isn't here is working with your partner or some friends and family and literally a probably 25% of the room put their hands up and I was like oh good luck and then I went on to my point but it can work you know my parents they had a a company and a county practice and they worked together for the entirety of it and it worked but I think it's also very very hard
00:24:02
Speaker
it has its challenges so for me it's definitely a no-no and that's definitely one of the lessons that I learned on the recruitment side but in terms of your original question about the sort of recruitment processes and stuff like I have a three-step interview process so people might think it's a bit intense before I even I'm actually almost I don't bring people into me and get them to send show me loads of slide decks and loads of love their work it's not it's actually more me showing them our clients and I'm i'm watching to see how excited they get.
Conclusion and Reflections
00:24:34
Speaker
I'm listening to hear if they ask good questions. I don't care about skill. I can train it. and Obviously, it's great if they've got some and in particular industry that you want them to have it in.
00:24:44
Speaker
But at least half of my team are what I would probably call wild cards. They weren't trained in the thing that I wanted them to come and do But their attitude and their personalities and that that feeling I had in my gut when I spoke to them and I met them, I took a chance and it's paid off. So I definitely think there's room for gut instinct um and, you know, attitude, attitude over skill. The only people that have not worked out have not had the right attitude. They might have had the skill, but their attitude was never going to be a flamingo attitude.
00:25:11
Speaker
That's so key. So very, very key. know, Emma, there is so, so very much that we could talk about. But for today, it has been really very, very interesting. i hope that we get a chance to talk again some other time. But for today, thank you very much. I appreciate it. No, you're welcome.
00:25:30
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the very independent mind, Emma Sansom, an expert in marketing, the founder and CEO of Flamingo Marketing Strategies.
00:25:47
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description. If you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone in the United Kingdom, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3.0 means that you can wave goodbye to buffering. There's a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:26:21
Speaker
The description is going to be well worth reading. If you've liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes and future links from people like Emma, please subscribe.
00:26:40
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abusida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.