- I grew the printing business from a couple of hundred thousand to... >
I grew the printing business from a couple of hundred thousand to £1.8 million in 18 months until a local customer, a Direct Mail handling house went bust.
That’s when I really started to look at data for the first time. Business development and marketing were part of what I used to run, so I had an idea in the back of my mind about how I could apply things and make them work, so I just rang up three of four friends, from suppliers to the my old employer, to sound them out, saying, “I used to have these problems, I suspect you do too, and I’ve had a thought about this methodology which is a building model.”
They could have said, “No we haven’t got those problems, we’re not interested,” and I’d have gone and done something else. But they said, “Oh yeah we’ve got the same problems, it’s actually quite a big problem.” It was a big problem for me too, so they were prepared to trust me and the idea and put money behind it. We began what is now Rocket Science but back then was called Intelligent Database Marketing (IDM).
I didn’t know it was going to work; I just had an idea which hadn’t been proven, got in my car and went to see people. So in the early days just going out and knocking on doors is a great way to sound out your ideas and will really fast track your progression
Alan Timothyi-snapshot
