PR firm broadens its base through training

Citation

(2005), "PR firm broadens its base through training", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 37 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2005.03737fab.001

PR firm broadens its base through training

A UK public relations and marketing agency has succeeded in increasing its profits – and reducing its dependence on a single business sector – by a three-year programme of training for its entire staff.

TDM Marketing Associates, of Bollington, Macclesfield, Cheshire, has also notched up three gold awards from the Institute of Public Relations, was highly commended in the UK National Training Awards, and is attracting new recruits because of its training programme.

Established in 1987, TDM employs 13 people and had, until 2000, worked exclusively in the information technology and telecommunication sectors. But one single client represented 40 per cent of its revenue, and both income and profit were beginning to flatten out.

“We had seen the initial benefit of training by obtaining Investors in People status, and we decided that if we were to become a major agency we would need to change the way we worked,” said managing director John Peters. “We decided to commit 1 per cent of our budgeted revenue to training, and to give training to all staff – account handlers, administrative and support staff. The specific needs we had to address were reducing our dependence on information technology and telecommunications from 95 to 60 per cent over three years, reducing our dependence on one major account to 20 per cent within two years and offering a much broader base of services.”

Client-facing staff received training through a combination of on-the-job coaching, mentoring, external events and external courses, while administrative and support staff were trained by a local IT-skills provider and in day-release courses at a local college. Specialist training organizations were used for professional-skills training for both groups.

“The training programme has given account-handling staff new marketing skills, and they are now developing strategic marketing plans with clients,” said John Peters. “The investment in training has been crucial in keeping the company stable, and growing the business through the worst recession in the marketing industry for a decade. We have managed to reduce our dependence on the IT and telecommunications sectors to 60 per cent, and our dependence on one account has been reduced to 25 per cent of revenue.

“Our new induction programme means that new account handlers can be fee-earning within six months, whereas it previously took 12 months. Moreover, our profitability has increased significantly.”