"I need stability in the team"

A conversation about the self-image and business philosophy of a young entrepreneur:

Mr. Beyer, you have now been on the market for 15 years. How important was it to create a network for yourself?
Network is an outdated term for me. In my understanding, it primarily includes the goal of clear acquisition. That's too narrow-minded for me, I don't want that. I don't go to business meetings to hand out my business cards with the sole purpose of getting customers. I don't find that useful or sustainable at all. I want to get to know people and their views, learn new things, meet politicians, listen to opinions, form my own opinion, constantly expand the circle of people who are interesting to me. Information about the environment in which I live and in which the agency is located is also important to me. Business comes second, but plays an indirect role. What matters to me is to be perceived and accepted as a personality. If I get suggestions for my work, get tips, can answer questions myself, that's very good and naturally leads to new business relationships. First and foremost, a customer hires the person with whom he gets along well, who he likes, who also inspires him, and whom he ultimately trusts to master his task well. Then he trusts the company. I myself weigh things up in the same way. If the chemistry isn't right, I don't accept an order. Then it won't work.

What is your customer structure today?
Of course, I started 15 years ago with mostly small customers - self-employed individuals like me at the time, small craft businesses, doctors' surgeries, but also quite a few medium-sized companies. Quite a few of the customers from the early years are still with us. In the meantime, however, I am mainly concerned with larger companies with 100 or more employees and also with complex orders with follow-up orders. Today, none of my employees can work on a single website for several weeks for 500 euros. We are often busy for months with highly complex Internet platforms. Our customers are usually not hipsters or somehow particularly "weird and modern". They are conservative - and so are we. We are therefore a good fit. I don't dupe everyone right away, I love a serious outfit myself. Our clients are serious and have often been in business for a long time, including housing associations and companies that deal with mobility in a broader sense. They let us handle both print and Internet orders. We have also developed a third pillar, a system primarily for caretaker services.

You said many customers have been loyal to you for years - what do you do for that?
Basically the self-evident: Customer care is good advice, consistently good quality services, punctuality, also honesty, fairness, openness. Good advice always means putting oneself in the customer's shoes in order to be able to recommend and present them with the right advertising materials for them and their goals. It is clear that there are always trends in the process, which should be used wisely. When I started the agency, there was no talk of every company needing its own homepage. Today, this is one of the main tasks for us. But anyone who subscribes to a newspaper also knows that advertising inserts, flyers and ads still play a big role. We have to produce both in good quality by the agreed deadline. I pay meticulous attention to that.

Nevertheless, mistakes will always happen ...
Nobody is immune to that. It happens with all diligence. Our principle is to communicate it immediately, not to attempt to cover it up, to communicate immediately how the defect can be remedied, and not to try to save money in the process. If, however, inferior quality is due to a customer having made a request that led to a poorer result - for example, selecting a different paper for a printed product than suggested, or if the customer put on time pressure - we do not accept any guarantee and do not put on the shoe in the end. However, this must also be communicated calmly and objectively. We then agree on how to proceed, but do not assume the entire costs. It always has to be a good fit for both sides.

Every industry cultivates its own jargon. In advertising, this has been reinforced by the digital possibilities. Many a marketing expert perhaps also makes himself a bit important with it.
What a customer did not understand was poorly communicated to him. This then leads to incorrect results in our work, too, to thousands of inquiries, to bad moods on all sides. We cannot and do not want to afford such a situation. Those who try to puff themselves up and impress with "marketing speak" do not build trust - rather the opposite.

The first point of contact for every customer is me. This is a matter for the boss, just as it is usually a matter for the customer. After all, larger sums are now involved. I take a lot of time, especially for the first customer meetings. For me, it's not just about demonstrating what we can do. I also want to understand what the company's goals are, how it is organized, and what the corporate culture is. When it comes to realization, the employee who implements the order takes over.

We also present new marketing trends and the resulting opportunities to our customers several times a year in our newsletter and assess their importance for small and medium-sized companies. Here we report on projects that we are currently working on - as proof of our competence, but also as suggestions for other companies. We write about campaigns in which we are involved, welcome new companies to our "customer community" and when we have a new employee, we introduce him or her.

How do you manage your employees? Today, we talk about "Generation Y" or "snowflakes", who have a very specific idea of working life, who want a lot of praise, a lot of feedback, who don't want to take on a lot of responsibility. Another keyword is work-life balance.
My principle is to treat everyone equally fairly. Humanity, common sense, predictability in behavior, trust are my guiding principles. I need stability in the team and everyone should feel comfortable at work. It must be clear that we are not a "close circle of friends" who know each other from the sandbox. Of course, it's important and nice to be friendly with each other, but it shouldn't become too intimate so that things that get in the way of the work can be clearly addressed. Everyone bears responsibility here and carries out their work very independently. In addition, there are regular project meetings and I try to have a short individual discussion with everyone in the team once or twice a month so that no problem, if there is one, is pending and becomes bigger as a result. If I notice that someone has a private problem, I sometimes give them a day off. If you have a private problem, you don't concentrate on your work.

By nature, we work in a flat hierarchy here. That doesn't change the fact that there is a hierarchy. I have the last word. I expect respect and respect on my part. I would never make jokes at the expense of employees and have never had to raise my voice in all 15 years. If there's a serious problem and I'm ex tremely unhappy with a behavior or performance, everyone notices immediately anyway.

What do you value in your employees?
What I'm very happy about is that everyone in the team sees themselves as service providers and treats our customers accordingly. This agency is a small family business. My partner and I know what it means to be independent, to be a service provider. That's what we wanted. This is also the reason for our great understanding for our customers - an understanding and a touching action that one cannot necessarily expect from the employees. I can say, however, that almost one hundred percent of our employees also display this attitude. What I even notice from time to time is that they are more likely to respond too much to special requests than to explain listlessly what is not possible.

There's also no getting around the fact that overtime has to be worked every now and then. Unfortunately, this is just as true in an advertising agency as it is in other companies. Deadlines have to be met, even if there are unplanned delays in between - although we always plan for time buffers, of course. As a boss, you have to set a good example if you want people to be willing to work hard. I know the term work-life balance is fashionable. There's no denying that everyone has a life outside of work and should enjoy it. But work is also life, in my opinion. It's important that you feel good where you work. As a boss, I have to create the right conditions for that.

What are your goals for the future?
We have three pillars: the offline business, i.e. print across the board, but also lettering and design, then websites and Internet platforms, and the third major area is our osca system, our self-developed offering for a digital caretaker service. All three are important to us and complement each other. We want to continue to grow in all three of these areas, although the digital area will certainly gain in importance more than the others. I think it's important to keep a close eye on the trends and opportunities that arise, but not to jump on every bandwagon unseen, but to check carefully whether they make sense for our customers. The continuous training of our employees is indispensable for this. They must be prepared to do this. And I have to trust them to master their particular field of work. In other words, the bigger the agency gets, the more trust I have to have in my employees.