How to monetise OME's expertise?

We have had a an excellent March - welcomed some new clients - seen a couple of phoenixes rise from the flames which is all positive.
The only thing furrowing my brow of late is i have spent a huge amount of time in long meetings recently discussing
1. social/business networks and
2. process improvements
3. what they should/could do right now in both areas.

Now some of that comes out as spend and proj mgmt fees but a lot is just a knowledge transfer that i am sure will reap rewards long term but hey - generally i prefer rewards to come in short and medium term.
We do have consultancy projects (largely for media owners) but possibly we should have a client consultancy arm and price it up accordingly. Are we giving the farm away? should we tease clients a little more? My current view is NO - as i think people buy into our approach and trust and relationships are built up - but its an area i am going to have to keep an eye on.

UrbanMole

Had a really enjoyable meeting with Andrew from UrbanMole who ran me through the site and what their plans were. I loved the concept as they have a clear target market and a compelling reason for that target market to use the site (rather than one of the other social/business network sites out there). I love the TripAdvisor type peer review and referral elements. Now its all about the execution - and so the really hard work begins....

Tim and Alastair - we wish you well

I believe the two founders of Enhance Tim Elkington and Alastair Cartwright have moved on to pastures new and i just want to take a moment to acknowledge their contribution to the development of online recruitment in the UK. They founded the business in 2001 when it was deemed highly dubious as to whether an agency/research co/consultancy could make decent money in our marketplace. Well they certainly did as well as educating and helping clients along the path to digital recruitment nirvana!
I am sure Enhance will blossom given the great foundations they laid and am equally confident that surely both can't be waving goodbye to online recruiting forever or can they...

ITV selling off Friendsreunited

Just adding some rather random thoughts to this story (ITV pay £150-175m for something that is now worth £2.50)

• It is so rare to find an acquisition that goes right isn't it? (a round of applause for DMGT's purchase of Jobsite though!). The typical story tends to be large corporate has strategy vacuum but feels the need to do something. Consultants are employed and feel the need to recommend something. Both of these end up with "lets go out and acquire something"
• Now just possibly this acquisition's main purpose is for the page 1-3 story in FT of the announcement that indicates that company is getting all web - e-commerce - international - moving up supply chain (delete as appropriate)
• After Day 1 - the company then have to think "what the hell are we going to do with this"
• In FriendsReunited - it was lets stick a job board on it - and dating - and classifieds. That must have taken about 5 mins to come up with!
• Execution in all areas - pretty appalling - and short term view taken so parts are closed down
• Almost from Day 1 - the site is completely engulfed by better technology - proper Web 2.0 and presumably a complete lack of inspiration to pick up the challenge from ITV
• In all likelihood - all the board who bought it (and consultants who advised buying it) have moved on and it can be safely binned
• They have announced that would be prepared to sell it for £50m - any takers? - no - didn't think so - it would be like buying 34 year old crocked footballer who was once a star player - so ITV better hope Newcastle or West Ham are in the market. I cant imagine what the true value would be - but not a great deal for a product in terminal decline that does not have an established revenue stream.
• I saw this quote in one of the pieces "Last year ITV claimed Friends Reunited had doubled its monthly unique users to 5.5m after switching from subscriptions to an ad-funded model" - 5.5m monthly uniques - really?? - it may be true but does anyone know anyone who has been on this site for the last 3 years?

State of the OME Nation - Q1 2009

I wrote this piece back in October about state of the market/economy and OME. And i thought having just had a week off to reflect on things - i should update and revise.

Overall it is clear now we are in the grip of a severe downturn in which no business - even a dynamic category busting business like ours - is immune. We are currently running spend and profitability figures which are pretty flat (+4% year on year) which in a normal business would be cause for champagne but given our huge growth historically is not quite as exciting. I am not looking at any market stats in this piece but these are the significant changes i have witnessed in last 4 months from my comments then

1. Some of our day to day contacts have changed in both client and supplier communities. This is due to 1 reason - redundancy. When a client needs to reduce costs/headcount - they do not need as many recruitment managers - hence these individuals are cut at quite an early stage. Media owners all need to cut their cost base - hence headcount reduction. We are clearly trying to help where we can - keep our eyes open for any opportunities that may help people we became close to over the time of our working relationships.


2. The gap between proposal and sign off gets longer - and some proposals sit out there - never being turned down but beginning to yellow at the edges. Caution and postponement become the name of the game - and i understand that perfectly.


3. The argument about successful adoption of new techniques to reduce cost per hire etc has been won - however if there is no recruitment occurring - the decision to go online does not necessarily elicit any short term activity


4. Some of our retail clients really inspire me by their determination to sell their way through these problems and carry on recruiting and expanding - yes they are more cautious but they see a big opportunity to grab m/s in this period. We try and have by and large been successful at OME in following this mantra.


5. I am extremely thankful for the government work we have got involved with in mid last year. It is both great in terms of quality of client and interest of projects and also i know my taxes are not going to be wasted for too much longer long term by huge adverts every week in nationals and locals.


6. However, Sean (my co-founder) and I used to have this 100% strike rate of meeting to some degree of spend/activity - for last few months all meetings are more speculative and tentative again understandably and i think our previous urgent almost impatient approach would be the wrong tack for the next few months. I made sure everyone at OME from Jan 2 knew the score and what was expected of them in terms of service and hard work etc but that should never come across as being over aggressive in any of our relationships with suppliers (and clients)


7. Every media and agency one talks to - when asked the inevitable question "hows business?" repeat the same answer - "it is tough out there but we are doing OK and out-performing market" - presumably not everyone is telling truth but then would you - if the answer was "absolutely shockingly - at this rate we will all be down the dole office including me"

Finally - i think in October i did not really know anyone who was out of work - i now know of at least 8-10 senior-ish people who are - and none of whom tell me there is much out there at all in terms of exciting opportunities.

Anyway hopefully this was not too glum - as one advantage of being a bit older is i have been through it before and it passes and it can pass quite quickly - and ultimately there will be big big winners from this period of change - just make sure you are in the winners camp!

A Gentle Dig at Certain Media Sales People

OK – a bit if a context first – we at OME love our media relationships – and most people we deal with are absolutely great. Let me also be clear i personally don’t mind beng phoned loads, being chased for biz hard or being expected to justify our media planning. I am also aware that i may just be a grumpy old man or worse... But here is my -

5 Things i Dont Like in My Media Relationships

1. Overfamiliarity. I just don’t feel comfortable with the chit chat until we have discussed some work/potential work and got to know each other a little better. Classic example being asked “how was my weekend?” by people I don’t know at all. As i have 3 young children – the answer is probably very little that will sound good to you when i tell you.
Oh and PS. don’t say Happy New year to me on Jan 31
2. Rudeness – i don’t like it in colleagues, clients or myself. But it always shocks me when a rep is rude to me or one of the team and it happens more than you would think. Now it may be that you are having a bad day or under pressure or we have annoyed you in some way. But i can guarantee you 2 things – 1. It won’t help you get any more ads out of us and 2. Your mum would not like it if she heard you – its just bad manners
3. Dealing with a “chocolate teapot” - no, Jamie – that’s not rude- I mean it in the context of “you are about as much use as a ...” Its absolute fair and reasonable to take timeout in a negotiation or have to discuss very significant things with someone senior. But don’t refer every single little thing to your manager otherwise just put your manager on our account as it cuts out the middleman and speeds everything up.
4. Bad service/Bad selling – there are brilliant sales people and brilliant account managers out there – dealing with agencies mean you have to be reasonable at both. Entry level good service is doing what you say you would do. That is hitting deadlines, checking work, listening to the brief. My key gripe on this is it makes us look shit if you don’t do it... Speaking for OME, good service significantly impacts some of our media decisions. Personally speaking – i also am not a big fan of the “nice” account manager who never sells to us. We like to know about your product enhancements, your expansion etc – and yes – we will mention these things to our clients where relevant.
5. Dealing with an “Olympic Flame” – so called as he/she never goes out. If we have spoken to you for a year – booked some ads – shared an occasional laugh. Then come and see us – we will even buy you a cup of coffee and a bun if you ask nicely.

Now being as I spent most of my career working for a media owner – I could start a list of what bugs people about agencies – but that’s for others to chip in!

Am i immune to loss of data stories

is it me or is the recent Monster story - a story that appears about 3 or 4 times a year in different formats (Government about 3 times last year and i am sure Monster have been the subject before.) I had to get immersed in it as we are knee deep in a couple of campaigns (1 for government) with Monster and i need to make sure i communicate 100% accurately with clients about it but otherwise i could nbot bring myself to engage with it. Possibly a problem!