New Year New Decade

2019 Review - Advance Group

New year new decade: What’s new in the Advance offices as we move into 2020?

Firstly, as always, I would just like to thank you for taking the time to read this article.

So, at the end of 2019 I opened up a little on the fact that last year was a tough one, not from the perspective of generating revenue etc, more from the challenges that came with the year as a whole and external factor’s creeping into the equation moving some of our attention away, splitting our focus.

As always, Simon and I look inwards, from an analytical point of view to see what we could do differently as leaders to influence change within the team and business as a whole. Here is a list of changes that we have introduced moving forward into 2020;

·         We recruited great people to add to our team of ‘experts’ – one of the key additions was a new sales director (Guy Statham) to lead our Business Development team. He has an exceptional background in business development and fantastic knowledge of the Construction Industry with over 14 years’ experience in generating new leads and cultivating existing relationships, as the Steve jobs saying goes…

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do”.

·         We reviewed all our internal processes and implemented some fundamental back office changes, these are to ensure that we pull together as a team and move forward in the same direction, understanding each other’s roles.

·         Introduction of a quality review team managed by our 1st team member Lisa Duvall-Brown, who has been with us since 2016, we couldn’t think of anyone better to manage this area of the business. This new aspect of the company adds a great level of quality assurance for our clients and partners giving them the piece of mind that all appointments scheduled, CPD’s booked and enquiries to price from our lead generation all meets these superior standards.

·         Project: Advance – CRM; this is our new bespoke CRM system, this will enable the team to be even more efficient than they currently are, it will provide more detailed reporting to our clients, drilling down to the important information in a clear and understandable way. In the months and years to come as we grow and build on Advance CRM it will also include live access and campaign trackers for a completely transparent view on each campaign, via web and mobile app access.

So, after these 4 key changes it will be interesting to look back on the coming year in 12 months’ time to see how it has played out.

One thing for sure is that it is important to remember that Advance Group was created not to be better than the competition, but to be different. With this philosophy at the heart of what we do and driving the way we do it we are set apart from the competition and with a focus on quality over quantity it has enabled us to grow year on year since our creation.

It is staying true to this belief that will see our company through thick and thin.

One of my family’s favourite quotes is “We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths”.  Walt Disney.

Let’s have a fantastic 2020 everyone, good luck to you all.

Mike Whitfield – CEO