Ambitious Marketing Consultancy

Conical is a well-established marketing consultancy. It has a particular specialisation in professional services marketing. Stephen Bedford provided us with an overview of the company, as well as discussing his own role and his award as CEO of the Year 2017.

Conical is an ambitious marketing consultancy offering services including retained marketing support, especially for digital marketing, strategic marketing planning and design for digital, print and branding. Stephen explains what he believes has led to the company’s astounding success.

“Helping to make us a successful company, the team possess a strong strategic vision of the market opportunities available to business. There is a realisation that expertise comes from sector understanding as well as discipline knowledge, and we ensure all staff are appropriately trained and equipped to serve the customer. Conical and the management team also has an ability to delegate and to spot potential recruits with talent, before training them and developing them to be the wonderful successes they are today.”

Guaranteeing that all staff are working towards achieving the same mission and reaching the same goals, Stephen informs us that people are allowed to develop at their own pace, but are of the understanding that they must deliver for the company, and to clients. Teamwork is essential in creating a successful business, something employees take on board and value at the company.

“Regarding out team ethos, we are a very inclusive nonhierarchical business. People have their own space to grow but also are clear that they have a personal responsibility to deliver. Culture is not articulated as such but new employees are closely mentored during the early stages of their career with us. We value knowledge, client service and a team ethos.”

Leading a successful business is about managing and motivating staff to deliver the best possible service to customers and clients. Stephen describes what key principles he encourages staff to follow and explains how each employee is different and how the company has a unique approach to how it mentors and develops its staff.

“All individuals are managed in a way that best suits their ability and the stage they are at
in their career. For more senior personnel the approach is one of peer review and discussion, whilst for more junior staff it is more of a mentoring and developmental approach.”

Being a successful CEO himself, Stephen is well placed to offer advice on how others may achieve the levels of success that he has. Setting achievable goals and setting an exact path on how to reach this target is something that Stephen strongly believes in.

“For anyone else looking to become a successful CEO, do not start out on a business venture without a clear vision of what the opportunity is, where the venture will sit within the existing market place and why people will want to use its services or products.”

In his concluding comments, Stephen predicts what the future holds for Conical and himself. He talks about some upcoming projects and explains how the company will develop further. Stephen notes that he has been asked to consult and adapt his services for many other clients, which will be of benefit not just to him, but also the company.

“Much of what we are looking at in the near future is gradual evolution but it will require a fine-tuning of the services we offer. Marketing is diversifying and clients need to know what tools to deploy to achieve specific strategic objectives. Many struggle with this so our marketing consultancy offer within professional services will expand.

“Functionally, I see us providing more specific retained/outsource support for clients in relation to digital marketing including web, e-mail, digital advertising, social media and content marketing. Much of our design support is now integrated across web, digital and print. We will further establish our integrated capability with web projects increasingly leading the way.

Personally, clients are asking me to adopt more of a hands on Non-Exec style role for them. This is something I enjoy and anticipate doing more of this going forward.”

Company Name: Conical

Contact: Stephen Bedford

Telephone: +44 1727 844000

Website: conical.co.uk