We started this week by making 25% of the digital marketing team redundant. Ugh - real transparency is hard. I much prefer telling you how great we are at stuff.
Compared to COVID 19, Black Lives Matter, the ongoing refugee crisis, our little tale of woe seems so irrelevant. But it isn't irrelevant. Not to our now ex-colleagues and those of us who remain. Moreover our customers, suppliers, partners and friends deserve an explanation, even though I'm sure you can guess why this was necessary.
The monkey team were all geared up for 2020 being another big growth year... Maybe push us past the million pound profit mark. Then 50% of our retainer income upped and left due to the lockdown. We've been lucky enough to win some decent contracts in the meantime but it's not enough to replace that lost income.
Noisy Little Monkey is like a big (slightly dysfunctional) family and the outcome of this decision for those affected probably feels like a massive betrayal. Nicola and me certainly feel like we've betrayed them, let them down.
History teaches us that the recovery may be slow, with bigger contracts taking longer to close and we need to set the business up for a bumpy ride. We couldn't do that without making hard choices and hurting some people we love dearly in order take care of the whole.
People will ask why, if we had to cut the delivery team - why we haven't cut the sales and marketing team? Surely if they can't deliver the volume of new business predicted, way back on our January planning day, that team is the most logical to let go. We practice what we preach - in times of crisis businesses who want to grow should lean in to business development investment . Which means we've kept our sales and marketing because we believe there will be a profitable recovery.
Now you know why you might miss a few of your favourite faces on Zoom meetings.
The faces change but Noisy Little Monkey's mission to enable ethical business growth through Inbound while making your day to day that little bit brighter hasn't. For a week or two though, please forgive us for not making you laugh quite as much as usual - we're all a bit bruised.
Tough times make for stronger people - Just as they will for the monkeys who've moved on, these difficult days will make Noisy Little Monkey stronger too.
And if you're looking for a tech SEO whizz, an inbound marketing genius with loads of HubSpot certs or a generalist with first class Adobe and social marketing skills... let me know. We've set them up for success as much as we can - booking coaching sessions with Kirsty Hulse and reaching out to potential employers among our competitors - every little bit of help would be greatly appreciated to get them back in the saddle.
