'We were not in it for the money'

WITH a weather-worn rucksack slung across her back and sporting short, spiky hair, Diane Gates was hardly the best turned out of the 70-or-so respondents to an advert in the local jobs page - an advert that was a little unusual.

Siobhan Bales, flush with excitement about her new business, had omitted to put a name or contact number on the recruitment ad, just an address leading applicants to the shoebox-sized office in Old Post Office, in Pink Lane, that her husband, Stephen, had painted bright purple.

The interview was a pint and a chat in one of Newcastle's best known watering holes, The Forth Hotel, in Pink Lane.

"We had a lot in common," Di recalls. "We both agreed that you don't have to be a b******d to do well in business."

As conversations go, it was only upstaged by the one that initially spurred Siobhan to set up her business.

Seven years ago, Siobhan - or Si as she's known - was hosting a summer party at her new house. She was on maternity leave from her job at Ward Hadaway.

"I didn't want to go back," she says.

"An accountant friend turned to me and said, 'Do you know, you would be great at running a business?'.

"In my new house, I had a long, pure white carpet and at 5am I was scrubbing red wine stains out after the party, thinking, 'I'm going to do it'."

The next day, she spent £2,500 on a computer and, after deliberating over what business to start, she plumped for e-marketing.

"I decided to call it emarketing.com - highly original - but someone had beaten me to it, so bmarketing was born."

From its inception on January 8, 2001, bmarketing was founded on creativity and fun.

As with most new businesses, bmarketing had a broad client base in its early days, although it always had enterprise at its core.

Late that year, Di took the opportunity to buy into the venture.

"The business got to the stage where it rocketed. We needed to get money into the business to capitalise on opportunities. I was never in doubt that it was the right thing to do."

They took time out to plan a strategy to inject greater focus.

"We decided that youth enterprise was the way forward," explains Di.

"At that time, it was so new but it was a natural fit - everything about it was in synergy with what we were about."

Si says: "At the time, there were a lot of mixed messages. People thought we were a support agency. We realised that internally we needed to restructure to maximise the best of our staff strengths."

It was relaunched in 2004 as the bgroup, with nine staff and six divisions.

One of those strands was the bdaily, an e-newsletter dispensing bite-sized chunks of news and useful information which has become perhaps its best marketing weapon in the North-East.

Di says: "We had a year-in-industry student, Chris, who was one of our first employees. He was the first editor of the bdaily. At the time, it was very informal and called bmarketing daily and it reached five or six hundred people."

Si adds: "We did it because we didn't have time to read business news, but it is really important to keep in touch for business opportunities.

"Initially, it was an amalgam of all the local news and then it started to develop into a phenomenon. We have never done any marketing for it. It was zeitgeist. It captured something that was missing."

Bdaily has more than 8,000 subscribers. The bgroup is in talks with venture capitalists to explore ways in which to maximise the full potential for it, including the fledgling online television strand bdaily.tv.

Si says: "Once we start marketing it, it will be tremendous. We are really excited about it."

They pair acknowledge that they were driven by love for their work rather than money.

"We were never around profit," says Si.

Di adds: "We over-delivered, terribly. The work was so enjoyable and we wouldn't deliver a project for a client, we would take it over."

The bgroup has always had a close affinity with the enterprise agenda and maintained a commitment to bringing on young talent. It worked closely with Shell Technology Enterprise Programme (Step), now called Shell Step, and created a pool of graduates.

Staff were involved throughout the creative process and the business had an open approach.

That included initiatives such as "b my guest", where people outside the business could spend a day working with its creative teams.

"When the business was six, eight, ten people, it was effortless to ensure a relaxed culture. Maintaining that as we grew became difficult," says Di.

Si adds: "We had a flat structure - really just a meritocracy - and everyone was equal. But when we grew, we realised we needed to revisit it."

They embarked on a culture change management exercise that involved bringing in external experts to find out what staff expected from a career with the bgroup and to introduce Prince 2 project management.

Si says: "It is very different from the business we started. It has had to grow up massively and it has had to conform a little. But we wanted to retain the freshness and objectivity and that's why we are very playful when we talk about the business.

"We really needed to know the culture. We have really pushed the staff very hard over the last year. It's been a toughy, so we wanted to listen to them but knew we couldn't be the ones to ask the questions."

Staff said they wanted structure and to see career path progression to stay with the company.

The bgroup has matured from the days of the wacky adverts and staff appraisal days in the pub and is now heavily involved in enterprise initiatives across the country.

It is the darling of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for its innovative stance on driving the enterprise culture and it was the DTI that pushed for Si to sit on a European Commission panel promoting enterprise.

"When we started, the average fee was £500 to £1,000," says Di. "We realised that you can have 20 to 25 projects all around £1,000 and it takes just as much management as a £100,000 project."

After a few years, the company was netting contracts worth £10,000 to £15,000. In the past year, that had grown to up to £200,000 and the bgroup is working on projects worth millions.

Si says: "It is the first time that sort of market has been available."

With the focus must come the discipline not to be waylaid by other contracts.

"To niche is to be focused and to be extraordinarily disciplined. Opportunities are just flying to us now.