MarketMakers in 2014
2014 was a pivotal year for MarketMakers because it was officially 10 years since it all began with Paul Thomas and Henry Braithwaite. Fast forward a decade and we have seen continued growth every year – 2014 alone saw MarketMakers achieve 33% growth on 2013, leading to MarketMakers now employing 400 people.
Hitting double figures
10 years is a long time, especially in business. In this time we have grown from two people dialling out of their kitchen to the largest B2B telemarketing agency in the UK.
To celebrate, we put on a number of events for staff including a World Cup party and our first ever families’ day. Both Paul and Henry wanted to give something back to not just the team, but also the families that support them. This was a huge success with bouncy castles, music, go-karts, sumo wrestling and of course a BBQ.
Training and development
MarketMakers is committed to training and developing staff across the business and as such The Business School is now permanently staffed by a team of three.
Frank Antony, Senior Learning and Development Executive, was actually voted by his peers for the “Players’ Player” award 2014.
He says, “I was delighted to receive the award; it was a great honour. My sincere thanks to everyone who voted for me.”
Over 2014, The Business School:
- Ran 220 power sessions
- Put on over 600 coaching sessions and workshops
- Ran sessions for 1100 staff (not unique, as staff can, and do, attend multiple sessions)
Promotions and awards
Through the work of The Business School and the commitment of the teams on the floor, MarketMakers were in a position to promote 100 individual staff members in line with the company’s progression system.
Congratulations to you all, and here is what some of the promotion recipients had to say.
Katrina Parsonage, Client Director
“I was promoted to Client Director Level 1 on April 8th 2014, meaning I achieved my key personal goal to be at that level by the end of the year. To get there, I built some great relations with ongoing clients. The level of pride I have obtained achieving this is off the scale & in my role as Client Director I am currently working on selling in some new business off the back of some great feedback from my other clients.”
Bradley Hughes, Client Manager
“For me, 2014 was a productive year. I started the year as an Account Manager and swiftly advanced to Senior Account Manager at the end of January. I then worked hard to earn my next promotion at the end of October to Client Manager and at the same time was given the opportunity to become Assistant Team Manager for a brand new team in Ava’s Unit. I also finished in the top 5 for renewals in Bureau! So a very busy but productive year and hopefully it’ll be the same story again this year.”
Graeme Coles, Client Director
“It was a big year for me with major renewals. New clients are going strong and I was fortunate enough to be included in the Dubai incentive trip.”
Charity work
MarketMakers have been long-time supporters of charity work, in particular the schools for Africa initiative.
To raise money for the excellent cause, we do a number of activities such as a dress down day on the last Friday of every month and fancy dress for Halloween.
Still, some of our team go that little bit further. For example, in August, 20 of our staff cycled from Buckingham Palace to Paris to raise money for the cause.
In total from all our activity we were able to donate £264,000. We have now donated enough money to build our 10th school, something we are all very proud of.
Company awards
Over the course of the year we won a number of critical business awards.
In January, we were named the number one B2B telemarketing company in the UK. Then, in May, we were extremely pleased to be voted the 34th best workplace in the UK.
This was followed up by our sister company Really B2B winning not once but twice at the prestigious B2B Marketing Awards. Having been initially shortlisted for 3, they ended up walking away the awards for “Best Use of Content Marketing” and “Best SME-targeted Campaign”.
What does 2015 hold in store?
We hope it’ll be more of the same. We are working on improving the services we deliver to our clients including updates to our MM Cloud Portal. Also, rumour has it that we could see the launch of our first mobile app to further support our clients’ needs.
We are looking at how we can enhance our staff training programme even further to help promote another 100 team members.
However, the simple fact is that none of this would be possible if it wasn’t for the great team we have in place and the excellent relationships we have with our clients.
Contact us to see how we can help your business
Tags: Charity News, Marketmakers, Telemarketing, Training