Don’t Underestimate The Little Guy, Especially If He’s In Your Mit’s.

So, this is a bit of a ranty post, and I didn’t want my second post to be a ranty one, but here we are. It is kind of a funny story to me, so here goes.

A few years ago, I worked for a construction company based in London called Radii, for more of my work history you can click here. I was the marketing manager there and it was my job to rejuvenate the marketing of the company. The word rejuvenate is being used quite liberally here as before my appointment the marketing used was a 10-year-old, never updated, flash website and taking clients out to dinner and drinks like he was Gordon Gecko, and it was 1980’s Wall St.

The main objective for me was to build and create a new website for the company. Every time I mentioned something that was unfamiliar such as; staring and maintaining an up to date twitter account or LinkedIn page I was met with resistance. The main resistance I would be faced with was “we don’t need to that, we’re number in our field”. The idea was to get the website caught up like other competitors.

Here’s the problem, they weren’t number one that honour went to a company called Optima who did projects the same as Radii but up and down the country, for big names too like BBC and ITV when they moved to Salford Keys as well as international projects in Dubai. Radii were number two. Another company called Planet were number three.

Now, during my time there I did a lot of market research to try and make the website, the company and my output the best it possibly could be. In doing so I would regularly update my superiors with what I found, and that was that Planet are catching up. They were doing some amazing projects up and down the country, they are doing a lot of social media output and they were undercutting Radii in the London projects a lot, meaning Radii were losing out on a lot of work.

This meant that too often the powers that be would come back to the office effing and jeffing about how the client is wrong for going with someone else. It was never their fault for outpricing themselves. After all, “they were number one”.

During my regular update meeting with the powers that be I would point out all the work Planet were doing, and the response was “We don’t need to worry about them, we don’t even consider them competitors” in other words, we’re number one, fuck them and fuck you too.

Regularly I would tell them watch out for this company, watch out for Planet, they’re doing good things. Each time I would be told, they are not competition, basically fuck them and fuck you too. It happened almost every month. Look out for Planet – fuck them, fuck you too.

After a year, of coding, researching, my own photography, my own copy, logo designs and facing resistance at every opportunity I eventually finished the website, and it was ready for launch.

It was a special day in terms of what Radii had accomplished in terms of marketing. I also handed over a five-year marketing strategy for the company detailing how they can get more clients, win more jobs and beat the competitors. I was quite proud of myself.

Then one day, all of a sudden, I couldn’t log in to the back end of the website to do some updates on jobs that have recently been completed. This is odd I thought so I contacted the IT dept based near Chester, he agreed that it was odd and that he will look into it. Next, out of nowhere I could not log in into my emails anymore.

Now I think something shitty is going on.

But I keep my head down, report that to IT too who said it’ll be investigated.

After that, the powers that be call me into the meeting room with an envelope in his hand. I know what is coming next.

He sits me down and thanks me for the website, tells me how he really likes, and it looks good. The colours, logo, useable links are all great, and thanks me for the strategy to use going forward. But then goes on to tell me he is not going to use it.

Turns out they are not interested in gaining extra clients, they want to concentrate on the ones the already have. The analogy he used was an attempt at a football one. Apparently, he wants to concentrate on getting the ball from the penalty box in to the goal, whereas I concentrate on the rest of the field, and those two visions don’t mix. He handed me my last payslip, my P45 and showed me to my desk, where I packed my things in to my bag and left without saying a word to anyone.

I mean I landed on feet with other companies, am I a bit bitter? Yeah, sure. If I knew it was going to be a set contract with an end date, I would’ve made sure there was something coming thereafter. And I would not have thought that this one role could go somewhere long term.

In the years preceding that I have bumped into some of the guys that worked there, who I got along with quite well, in the street in central London. We would just pass each other in the busy streets on our way to respective meetings or whatever. I would raise my head and smile like you when you see someone you know in the street, only to be met with complete ignorance and they breezed past me.

I even kept a few of them on my LinkedIn, not that I use LinkedIn that much, but it also comes across as quite petty to remove people from those kind of things in my opinion. Unless there is something majorly wrong of course. On LinkedIn, I have seen some have been promoted to certain positions. These positions are completely made up and it is to make that person seem more important than they actually are. It seemed about a year they went through a major restructuring, where in fact most just got a fancier job title.

So fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I check LinkedIn, and I see a post from Radii, the first one since I left it’s worth noting. That bit did not interest me, what did was the fact the logo had changed a little. Not a lot, but a little. So, I did a little digging.

I checked companies house for the company, the directors, even one’s ex who was made a director right before what seemed like divorce. I got my Business Analyst hat on and went into past records, trends, market share, taking into account the pandemic how much construction was going in London versus the rest of the country, even called in a few favours and from people with more access than me.

I found out that since I left, their strategy of only concentrating on the clients they already had and ignore any possible new ones, was flawed. Planet didn’t share their views, and in fact grow so much obtaining new clients and work, they not only overtook them as number two, but they also bought Radii.

The company I told them to be wary of, the company I told them be watch out for, now owns them. And now, Mr “Fuck them and fuck you too” is sat at the back of the class and told to shut the fuck up, while someone 30 years younger owns the company. By doing exactly what I told them what they should be doing.

Now, I don’t wish any disrespect to the now called Radii Planet Group. I genuinely wish them all the best for the future and sure they will do great things going forward.

But, the moral of the story is, if you’re going to hire me as a Marketing Manager, fucking listen to what I say, don’t dismiss me or my intel, because you will get bought, you will get owned and you will get told to shut the fuck up by someone you didn’t even think was a competitor.