This week’s interviewee is Martin Huntbach, founder of Jammy Digital a web design agency based in Manchester. He works within a small team of four, taking on a limited amount of clients each year. He dedicates his time to individual clients and understanding their needs, goals and problems in order to work with them to build an online business, not just a website.

1. The biggest mistake you made in the last year & how you fixed it?

Trying to do everything myself. We’re a small business and, like many business owners, I’ve had to manage different aspects to running my company; accounts, marketing, customer service and producing the product. In my particular case, the product is web design.

Up until 2016, this was fine. But then we got busy. I worked 8am – 10pm most nights and Sundays were just another working day. The first thing to slide off my to-do-list was marketing. I was arrogant enough to think I didn’t need it, what with all the clients rolling in.

But they quickly petered out, and I hadn’t done any marketing in four months. I neglected the one thing I shouldn’t have.

Now, I have a dedicated person looking after customer service, particularly aftercare. I work with several freelance copywriters to help me with my content marketing. And I pay an accountant to handle book-keeping as well as the accounts.

This releases me to do the things I’m good at – designing websites and marketing. My weaknesses are finances, administration and writing copy. I’ve learnt that it’s far better to get more capable people to do those things than struggle with them myself.

2. A lightbulb moment

“Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful” this is a quote by Jay Baer who wrote “Youtility“. I now try to remember this quote whenever I publish content online.

Everywhere you look you see companies trying to go viral or jumping on the latest craze to reach more potential customers. This could be doing anything from the Harlem Shake to writing an opinion piece about Donald Trump. There’s pressure to get involved. Which is difficult when you’re shit at dancing and don’t want to spend one more second thinking about orange Voldemort.

After reading the quote from Jay Baer, it became apparent that people are after actionable, helpful advice. That doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining, but I no longer get caught up in the whirlwind of what’s popular. In other words, I try to stay clear of any Wanky Bollocks 😉

3. Tip for tomorrow

Go to live events (preferably paid events). I went to my first marketing conference in Sept 2015, and that’s when everything started to pick up for me.

Many of us work from our laptops, and while this gives us incredible freedom, it can sometimes feel isolating. By attending conferences, I was able to make valuable connections and friendships, meet industry leaders and even gained new clients in the process.

Since then, I’ve spent around £10k in conferences and events, and they’ve delivered a healthy return on investment as well as developing my personal skills. If you view it as a marketing expense, it helps put in into perspective.

Want to share your advice?
NWB confessional style interviews are posted every Monday from people in the business community. They are not self-promoting, or carefully selected quotes to make you sound good. They are full of useful, actionable insights from experience, not egos or bravado. If you like NWB’s style and have something useful to say, we’d love to interview you. Tweet @nowankybollocks or email katie [at] subjectconsulting.com.