Sibrossa Ltd.

What did your marketing and business development look like before you started working with Gemma?

In all honesty, it was pretty non-existent. I was conscious that I needed to put some effort into it, so I approached a consultant I’d worked with before to help me drive the marketing strategy. I reached the point where I needed to implement it, and that’s when I started asking around to find somebody who could help me put that strategy into practice.

What was the deciding factor that made you reach out for marketing support?

I was at the stage of the business where sorting out my website was the number one priority. I needed to do it, but I knew I didn’t want to do it myself – spending my time looking for the right providers. I’ve worked closely with web developers in the past, but my background is with very large web development companies, and that solution wasn’t going to work for my small business. My referral network, in this case, was pretty light. I needed somebody who had managed this type of work before and had the right connections.

Gemma was recommended to me, and when we spoke, I explained what I wanted at a very high level and asked if she could help me with a new website. She could. Gemma came up trumps with a number of developer options, and I chose one of them.

Why did you choose to work with Gemma?

Recommendation carries a lot of weight in my world, and I’d been told that what I needed was more of a marketing manager type than another strategist. That pointed me towards Gemma. I’m quite a good judge of character, and I usually work out fairly early on whether somebody is a person I can work with. After I spoke to her and reviewed her LinkedIn profile, I was quick to conclude that those connections were right to recommend Gemma.

How would you describe working with Gemma?

What you’re looking for in a consultant is experience and skills: somebody who has done this before and understands a growing business like mine. That’s what I’ve found with Gemma. She applies what she has learned from working with her other clients to my company and my needs.

There’s a good structure to how we work. My strategy set out what needed doing: sorting out the website, creating some case studies and working out an approach to market. We’ve done that together, with Gemma bringing her expertise and me bringing mine.

I’m also aware that Gemma can do far more than manage a website implementation. We’ve talked about social media, and she understands that I want a practical approach. I could easily have found a consultant who’d say, “Let’s go all over Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn,” and I’m never going to do that.

We’ve found how we work with each other over the last couple of months, and it’s working really well. I massively value her involvement.

What results have you seen from working with Gemma, whether tangible or intangible?

The most tangible result is the website, and Gemma handled it from start to finish. She wrote the brief setting out what the site needed to do, ran the tender process and evaluated the responses, and we chose a developer together. She then managed the build.

The next stage was the content, and that was very collaborative. Gemma took my knowledge and drafted the bulk of the copy, and I finessed it. We talked through the imagery the site needed, and she sourced a good selection and checked that I was happy with them.

The case studies were part of my strategy, and they worked in the same way. I gave Gemma a brief on three clients, with a few leading questions and some background on the work I do with each of them. She did the interviews and built the case studies, and when I went through them, they looked great. She’s also handling the sign-off with the clients.

Then there’s the SEO, which I hadn’t really thought about. It matters that my consultancy is found in the right places, so Gemma took the lead on making sure the website is optimised for search. Most of my business will always come from my reputation and my networking, so I’m not expecting the website to bring in lots of work. Even so, at least two clients have come through it within six weeks of launch.

How do you feel about the visibility of Sibrossa now, and about your marketing more generally?

I’m at the point where I really want to go out and start promoting the business, but I wasn’t confident directing people to the website I’d built myself. That was back in 2022, when I first started the business and put a website together on a minimal budget, just so that I had an online presence.

Today the consultancy has grown. I now have a team, as well as some very large clients and contracts. The decision to work with me isn’t made by just one person at those corporates, and I didn’t want them directed to a website that didn’t reflect the consultancy as it is today.

The new website has given me the confidence to go out and market. In terms of visibility, we’ve hit stage one: an effective, good-looking website.