Since commencing with The Unimail Group in 2000, Andrea has worked with the team to create over 11 publication titles serving the student and employment market, created one of the largest student member jobs board in the country, a full service employer branding agency, a distribution and logistics business for on campus events, operations in Canada, and won a stack of awards.
In 2009, The Unimail Group was awarded the Telstra NSW Small Business of the Year and in the same year, Andrea was awarded the NSW Telstra Young Businesswoman of the Year and in 2010 was listed on the BRW Fast 100 List. The Unimail Group has also been awarded Best Supplier to the Graduate industry (AAGE – Australian Association of Graduate Employers) 5 years running and Andrea awarded Best Contribution to the Graduate Industry many times.
Andrea‘s passion lies in helping companies tell authentic stories and making her clients look like rock stars.
She resides in Sydney with her incredibly patient husband, a slightly senile spoodle, a very clever cat and the invincible goldfish.
Visit Unimail – Click here www.theunimailgroup.com
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Christo: Welcome back to the Basic Bananas podcast. Today we have a very special guest Andrea Culligan. Coming from northern Canada in 1998, Andrea started an interesting journey with only $300 in her pocket and absolutely no plan. Since commencing with the Unimail Group in 2000, Andrea has worked with the team to create over 11 publication titles serving the student and employment market. She created one of the largest student member jobs boards in the country, a full service employer branding agency, a distribution and logistics business for campus events, operations in Canada and won a stack of awards. In 2009, The Unimail Group was awarded the Telstra New South Wales Small Business of the Year and in that same year, Andrea was awarded the New South Wales Telstra Young Businesswoman of the Year and in 2010 was listed on the BRW Fast 100 List. The Unimail Group has also been awarded Best Supplier to the Graduate Industry, Australian Association of Graduate Employers, five years running and Andrea awarded Best Contribution to the Graduate Industry many times. Andrea‘s passions lie in helping companies tell authentic stories and making their clients, her clients, sorry, look like rock stars. She resides in Sydney with her incredibly patient husband, a slightly senile spoodle, a very clever cat and the invincible gold fish.
Franziska: Thank you so much for being on the show today Andrea.
Andrea: Thank you.
Franziska: Is that how to pronounce your name? Andrea or Andrea?
Andrea: Well, it‘s got a bit of a nasalness to it, so Andrea would be fine.
Franziska: Andrea. Because in Canada you probably say that man.
Andrea: I do. I do and I just don‘t think I‘m posh enough for Andrea to be honest. Andrea works well for me.
Franziska: Andrea. Well in my language it‘s Andrea.
Andrea: Yes. But then it‘s also a male name in other countries if you say it like that.
Franziska: Yeah, that‘s true. In Italy.
Andrea: Yeah.
Franziska: But one thing that I actually do know about Canadians, they always say man after everything. Is that the same where you come from?
Andrea: We have to say man, or awesome. Yeah. So, yes. There‘s a few kind of weird Canadianisms that stay true.
Franziska: Yeah, no. I love it. And I love Canadians. So, let‘s get straight into it. If you can just tell our listeners a little bit more about you and also your business journey. I‘ve obviously seen you speak at an event and I thought I have to have this chick on the show because you‘ve got a really good story and the way you tell it is really compelling, too, so let‘s hear.
Andrea: Thanks. Look, I‘ll give you the short version and I am originally from Evanston, Alberta, Canada and I had an interesting childhood growing up and had a few challenges and at the age of about 18, 19, I just decided I wanted to change my perspective. So I got on a plane to Australia and luckily enough I have dual citizenship and so I landed on the shores with $300 in my pocket and started working. Serving off the land and I worked doing a variety of things in Australia. So I worked on whale watching boats, I sang in pubs, I guided packing trips, all kinds of different things and ended up in Sydney, Australia about 1999, 2000. And shortly thereafter, I was working as a business development person for a number of different companies and got poached as a business development person for the company called Unimail. And I was 23 at the time and just about two months prior to that I was actually in the opening ceremony for the Olympics as well as a fire breather. So I had a pretty diverse kind of personal career that took me to that point. But, I started out doing business development for this company and then shortly after I started, my only other colleague who was one of the owners of the company, just didn‘t really want to be involved any longer and so I took over running the business. And look, we‘ve really diversified over the years, so we actually started as a web-based email service for university students. And then we went through a dot.com crash. So we diversified into a publishing business and publishing books and directories for university students. And that was supported by a digital platform. But then we also created an advertising agency outside of that. We‘ve also developed a distribution logistics business. And a number of other different kind of businesses that sit underneath that. And then we launched in Canada in 2010 and here we are today, in a couple of different countries. And just doing a variety of things across a variety of different industries with still the same name. And that‘s been almost, well it‘s been 13 years.
Franziska: Wow. It‘s obviously been a very interesting journey and I definitely want to talk about the launch in Canada a little bit later because I‘m very interested and intrigued in how it all happened. Now you‘ve obviously grown quite fast from a two-man band back to a one-man band. How many people do you have now?
Andrea: Yeah. So there‘s about 20 staff. I have to say the bigger we get, the less team we want to include into the company. And that‘s something that I think a lot of businesses feel that they need to have more people to be successful. With technology and with different business systems, you are able to conduct a lot more efficient systems without having that many people. So one thing I always talk to people about is, it doesn‘t take a lot of people to make a lot of money or to be successful. You can operate a business with a smaller number of staff. I know a lot of amazing women and people that have great businesses that are $30-$40 million and then some that only have between 15 and 20 people. So we‘re now at 20 and I‘d be happy to add a few more but that‘s about it.
Franziska: Yeah, no. I agree. And also you know the whole dynamic in the team is obviously much easier to look after if it‘s not a huge team.
Andrea: Yeah, I mean. There‘s the side you‘re able to really develop the culture and really drill into those values very well. But you can still do that in a big business. I mean you look at the likes of Zappo‘s and they‘ve got one of the most incredible cultures in the world or 1800.junk. They led cultural environment for many, many years across Canada and then franchised into Australia. So it doesn‘t really matter the size. It does help if it‘s smaller. And it gets harder to manage as you get bigger, but if you‘ve got that initial 20 that are just completely ingrained in that culture, then they become the ambassadorship towards that future size. But I guess what I‘m trying to say is that‘s really valuable to be able to have a smaller team. Obviously due to overheads. Try and look at outsourcing options. We look at outsourcing and using experts in different areas of our business instead of hiring them in wherever we can.
Franziska: Interesting. Now one of your specialties is obviously the graduate attraction and engagement. So how to attract top level… Like really skilled graduates that are looking for a job. Do you have any tips for our listeners on how to do that and what it takes to hire really good people?
Andrea: Yeah. Look. I can talk a little bit later around how to build a value proposition that will work for getting people in the door. One thing about graduates. So, we have two businesses underneath The Unimail Group banner that sits within kind of that graduate space and that first one is we develop a graduate jobs directory and have a graduate job site. And we‘ve got about 70,000 students on that website that are within their kind of second to last and last year that are looking for employment. Our second business is an employer branding agency. So we create brands that people want to work for. So we develop the attraction strategies for organizations to have people attracted to their company. And globally, the things that are really valuable to companies, or to graduates, is that they want challenging work. And this is why small to medium enterprises across Australia are some of the largest employer of university students in the country. Because there‘s about 700,000 students that graduate every year. Now they‘re highly qualified candidates that can go into a business of a small to medium size and contribute immensely in very short timeframes. And that‘s exactly what they‘re looking for. So they‘re definitely looking for opportunity to have impact on the business. They‘re looking for challenging work and they want to be able to get feedback on a regular basis which I think is something that this generation up and coming is really, really clear about. But those two things, if you can provide those in your business. Not can you get the coffee and do the filing and perhaps figure out how to archive our server, it‘s really about giving them a project, managing through that project and being able to give them feedback through that project. They‘ll work whatever you need to get that done if you can give them that opportunity for impact in business.
Franziska: All right. That‘s really interesting. So the young guys now, the young people in this generation they obviously… They want responsibility and they want to have… They want to feel that they can have an impact.
Andrea: Yeah, absolutely.
Franziska: Instead of making coffees. What about rewards? Do you have an opinion about giving people rewards? Whether it‘s financially or more, you know, something else like a gift or verbally? What‘s your take on that?
Andrea: Yeah, look, it‘s interesting. I mean I had breakfast with Naomi Simson this morning who is the owner of RedBalloon Days. I‘m sure you‘ve heard of that business. Their entire focus is around employee reward systems. And there‘s immeasurable amounts of studies around the fact they say, you know, money is not going to be the most successful way to reward people and in fact, Daniel Pink, has this whole presentation that you can find online around autonomy, mastery and purpose. Which it goes through this whole philosophy of the studies done that if you give people a carrot, a financial carrot to do significantly senior work, they will actually do worse. So anything that‘s not systemized, it‘s not really worthwhile providing them with that cash incentive. So, really there‘s a couple of things. I mean giving them an experience is rewarding. Giving anyone an experience within the business, whether that be an opportunity on a project, allowing them to work in an area that they perhaps wouldn‘t otherwise be working in is really valuable. As a reward or a gift, giving someone an experience or something that‘s of value to them, I think it‘s always, always important. And we always ask our team members, what is it that they‘re interested in. One of the guys is about to publish a kid‘s book and he‘s an illustrator. So he‘s been talking to me about that. Well, it‘s much more valuable for me to put him in touch with a publisher and perhaps pay for that first initial meeting than it would for me to give him a $500 gift voucher or give him an extra bonus at the end of the day. We‘ve given iPads prior to them being released. Those things that are almost priceless are really valuable; and then at Lasien which is a great Australian company, they have an incredible employee culture, they actually give a day a month for their team members to spend on anything they want within programming. And they‘re computer programmers. So they get to build anything that they want and that has added just amazing value to their company because they‘ve been able to take those different projects back to their clients and perhaps develop them into new products. So there‘s a number of different ways, but it‘s experience. Experience is an all the way. So giving them an experience within the business. Giving them an experience such as something that they can do. Giving them something of value that gives them their experience. Does that make sense?
Franziska: Yeah, I love that. And I have actually… I haven‘t seen the Daniel Pink presentation yet but I‘ve seen a couple of other research studies that have… I feel really interested in how you reward, you don‘t reward and the main voice that I‘ve heard is that, yeah, the whole money thing maybe not so much but giving them stuff like you mentioned is probably more like personalized gifts and more just making them feel awesome and giving them responsibility is more valuable than giving people money. It‘s really interesting because I‘ve even seen that with clients. The whole referral system. You can give your clients that refer people money or you can give them a gift. And I found that sometimes just sending some people flowers that that‘s more valuable to them than sending them 200 bucks.
Andrea: Yeah. Look, we do the same thing. As long as it‘s personalized, we think it‘s really valuable so we‘ve got a lot of male clients as well as female clients, so sometimes that‘s a bit tough. You don‘t really want to send them flowers.
Franziska: Oh, bad.
Andrea: Well, it depends. We agree, it‘s absolutely about the experience and also from a graduate perspective, you asked me about the graduate side of things, globally, there‘s research that says that salary doesn‘t even rank on those top six things that they‘re searching for an employer for. So, I think the number one thing is you‘ve got to make it so that you‘re essentially market average, whatever role that looks like. So you can‘t pay them 20 grand less and then expect them to deliver the same amount in value. You‘ve got to somehow accommodate for the fact. You‘ve got to pay within that market average so that it just takes it off the table. So they‘re not worried about the fact that they‘re not getting paid enough. You‘ve got to be able to reward them through experience.
Franziska: I love it. Now let‘s talk a little bit about the how to look attractive for… Because you guys specialize in that. You help businesses look and be attractive for graduates. Let‘s talk a little bit about that.
Andrea: Yeah, yeah. I mean look we work across all levels of people so whether or not you want to make yourself attractive to a graduate or an experienced person or a senior person, there‘s generally an eight phase methodology. But the top three are really important. And the first one is, what does your business want to do? So find out what is the absolute business objective you have in mind. Do you want to grow? Do you want to build infrastructure? Do you want to have an operational focus? What is your business objective over the next 3 to 5 years? So, for example, with us we need to grow. So we need to make sure that the people that are coming into our company are of that mindset. So from that discovery of understanding the business objectives, you kind of identify what you‘d call your duck trades. You know if you‘re sitting in the middle of a field and you want to shoot a duck, you want to make sure you have the right duck. So what are those duck trades or the key competencies is what most psychometric people would call them. On that key competencies, we‘ve got kind of those level of traits. From there you think, okay well what is it that I have that‘s unique to my business. And we‘ve seen a number of retailers that have this incredibly uniqueness about their experience. That it‘s almost… It‘s different than their consumer brand. So Lululemon which is a sportswear retailer that‘s in Canada, they have a cult-like experience as an employee. And the reason is because they focus on self-development, promotion, feedback and career progression so that they are… That‘s what their unique position in that marketplace is. Now that ties in really well with their entrepreneurial mindset of growing fast. Because they expect you to self-develop. So if you have that unique position of your business, you almost build this cult-like experience. We all know those cafes you go to, where the people in that cafe are all the same. And you‘re either drawn to it or you‘re not. Go into that cafe, it makes it even more of an experience. You don‘t care what you‘re paying in that case because you‘re getting this experience that all these employees have. There‘s nothing worse than going into a cafe that‘s just like the same as everyone else. So it‘s developing that uniqueness that you have and creating that sense of excitement around your business.
The other thing is really sharing the vision. So be transparent with your team. What do you want to do and how are they accountable to what that looks like for your future? So if you want to grow, what is the number that you want to grow to? Or what is the store numbers that you want to grow to? And how can they add value to that experience on a regular basis so that they, too, are part of that whole business objective. So finding out what the business objective is, identifying those key competencies, what is your unique positioning within that marketplace. So look at your competitors. What are they doing that you don‘t particularly specialize in perhaps an area that they‘re not being successful in and that you have this great opportunity to really present yourself as such. And then getting those people in and sharing that vision with them. And even as part of the interview process, you‘re interviewing on that key competencies. You‘re being exclusive about those key competencies and then you‘re also sharing that vision. I mean there‘s some great ways around recruiting people. Prime example is if you have a candidate or if you want to hire for some people, and let‘s for the purpose of this conversation let‘s say you‘re hiring some wait staff for a cafe, you put an ad out and part of your ad says, “You must email this address and you‘ve got to tell me in 20 words why you think you could add value to this cafe.” They don‘t email you this information and all they do is send you a CV. Automatically they‘re off the list because they‘re not long division. So then when they email you, let‘s say they do email you those 20 things. They get an automatic reply and that automatic reply says, “Here are what our vision is of the business. We want to be in five cafes across the northern beaches within the next three years. Our team want to be passionate and excited about delivering the best quality product and service we can and be renowned for that. If this is still interesting to you, reply to this email with ‘Interview Me‘. Now if they don‘t do that, then you already know that they‘re not interested and their communication skills are nil and that they haven‘t actually read the information that you are passionate about.
So you automatically get this sense of culling them. So by the time they get to the interview, you know they‘re already excited about your vision. They know where you want to be and what your expectations are of them. And they know what you want to talk about. So those are just some kind of key quick tips that I would recommend for any particular… For a small to medium sized business on how to make sure that you‘re standing out from the crowd, getting clarity on what your unique positioning is for an employee, and being transparent with them around where you want to be and how they can help you get there.
Franziska: I love it. That is so… There‘s is so much gold in what you just said; I love it. I took so many notes, too. And your strategy about the ad. I love that one. You know how you say the 20 words because you can filter through people. And we‘ve had really funny stories. We had someone and that‘s our fault… We had someone recently that we were hiring for someone, a team member, and somebody came and she didn‘t even know what the business was. She wasn‘t even sure what the position she was coming for and what the business was. And I was like, “Hmmm. That‘s maybe not so good.” And then we had someone else who basically asked us as they walked in, they said, “Hey, look.” When we asked the reason why they want to work for Basic Bananas, was they said because of the vision. Because they want to be part of the vision. We were like, wow, you‘re probably almost hired just for saying that.
Andrea: Yeah. What are they going to add value to your business? I think for so many years, I really accommodated for the fact, “Oh, I‘m a small business and maybe people don‘t want to work for me. And it‘s hard here.” There‘s a lot of people that are excited about that opportunity, so it‘s your dones. This is an exciting place to be a part of and you really have a vision. If you‘re passionate about it, you don‘t want to be constantly trying to drive people‘s enthusiasm for that. Because that is just freaking exhausting. You really want to make sure that those people are feeding you energy, otherwise, what the heck is the point?
Franziska: Yeah. I agree. I totally agree. Now just a quick detailed question. Where do you suggest that people put their job ads? Do you recommend SEEK or what‘s the best place for people to advertise?
Andrea: It‘s completely dependable on your business. So that‘s a tough question. I do believe that if you want to hire local then use your local medias because you also should have… You most likely have a presence with the local media or in your local community so I‘m from the northern beaches where… That‘s where I live, hence the accent. But up there we have a house up in North Curly so I was on the northern beaches for about 10, 12 years and I know all the local guys at the cafe and I know all those kind of things. So generally local and Manly Daily if you‘re looking on the beaches or any of those Cumberland classifieds are really valuable. So look, there‘s networking and LinkedIn. So if you‘re looking for service-based businesses, and you‘re looking for specialists, search. Be proactive about it, don‘t let them just come to you, hunt out LinkedIn. And that‘s one thing I really recommend. If you‘re looking for people that are meant to be connected in their industries and they don‘t have very many connections on LinkedIn, there‘s a question mark around that for me. If they‘re telling you that they‘re great networkers and they‘ve got a great group of people that they connect with on a regular basis about their professional life, LinkedIn‘s that number one place. And if they don‘t have a strong presence there then don‘t even think about it. And also, Google them. And this used to be a real negative thing to say, but just Google them, you never know. We hired a guy last year… talk about funny things that happened to you. He went AWOL in the middle of a project in part of our distribution business. Completely disappeared off the face of the earth, running a project. This whole thing and we get a call from our office manager saying, “You need to turn on Current Affair.” This guy is on the “Current Affair” and he‘s been ripping people off pretending that he was a landlord.
Franziska: Oh, my god.
Andrea: Taking their bond money and then the house was actually not his. So, he was in court. He went AWOL. So you know, if we would have Googled him, we would have seen that information because it had been in the press before. That was a big mistake on our behalf. So LinkedIn‘s a really good place for service. Local media is great for local businesses that are customer facing, SEEK‘s good if you‘re looking for a national approach. But just be aware that it‘s not going to give you a really clear message so you‘ve got to make sure that your job ad is well written and please note that a job ad is not a job description. So when you‘re posting this stuff online, don‘t put 10 paragraphs of information. Just be really clear about who you are. Again, share the vision. So, where are you? What is exciting about you? What‘s your unique positioning in the marketplace? And what do you have to offer an employee? What do you expect in return? There‘s all these people that say, “Oh, you know, we‘ll give you this, we‘ll give you that.” But there‘s no one saying what is the expectation. So, we‘ll give you a great place to work and a supportive environment. We expect you to be really client-centric and with an entrepreneurial mindset. Little things like that. And the other things around that job ad is focus on what you want them to deliver over the next four to five years. That should be part of your job ad. Not you must have these skills. If you‘re giving them the projects that they need to deliver over the next five years, then they should be aware of the skills it requires to take to do that and they should already have experiences in those particular types of projects.
Franziska: Love it.
Andrea: Long answer, sorry.
Franziska: No, I love it. This is so valuable. I‘m really stoked with everything that you share. And another thing… I‘m sure you have hundreds of funny stories and we‘ll probably get to one particular one at the end, hopefully. But, you know, the whole checking references. Obviously nowadays, I do still believe in calling references but I also believe in what you say, Googling people and we definitely had a funny person, too, where I was totally naive and I didn‘t even check references. But then suddenly it just came to my mind that I Google that person and I realized something similar. They were living in France before and pretty much left the country with a lot of open bills and just, you know, a huge mess. And thanks to Google, you can find out that sort of stuff before you hire someone.
Andrea: Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean I had an interview with someone in Canada and they were meant to be a really senior person and I always look at their LinkedIn account beforehand and we had a number of aligned connections. Now I‘m very protective of my LinkedIn account and I understand that I know lots of people through a lot of different events. But I know where I‘ve met them and even if I go back to my LinkedIn account, I‘ll remember where I‘ve met them. So I asked this guy, I said, “I‘ve looked throughout your LinkedIn account. I notice we have a lot of alignments. How do you know this person?” He‘s like, “I don‘t even know who you‘re talking about.”
Franziska: Yeah, exactly. Now let‘s talk a little bit about how you managed to get into Canada. You obviously were a very smart and strategic decision maker because you get to go home a lot. Is that right? Well that would be one of my points.
Andrea: I‘ve been asked to speak on export panels a lot and all these people have these great research models that they‘ve conducted and given information and I just looked around the market for about four years and thought, hmmm, Canada‘s very similar to Australia. The youth pay is heavily saturated. The US has a very different way of doing business and I didn‘t want to use Asia as my first export market. So Canada actually, although it is my home country, was not based on because of that and it didn‘t have a lot of foundation to go into it. So, I‘m lucky. And it‘s incredibly well aligned to Australia. Very similar to the east and west and the mining resources and the style of communication are very, very, similar. But I really just wanted to look at a different country to export our services and Canada seemed to come out trumps from an anecdotal perspective.
Franziska: Interesting. So it‘s very similar to how you market and how you talk to people is quite similar to Australia, you reckon?
Andrea: It‘s a little bit different. So, Canada is still incredibly conservative. And Australia is quite loose. So it‘s easy go to the pub for a meeting or whatnot. Whereas Canada has a very structured approach to relationship development. And it‘s still very conservative in its‘ approach and it still has a big concern about being seen as the top dogs. Which is similar to Australia but not quite as much. In saying that, they still feel that they have to be quite competitive because they share borders and that‘s much more different. So the entrepreneurial minds that an acceptance of entrepreneurialism in Canada is much greater than say Australia. I found that really interesting in Australia. I had to pretend that I was in big business for a long time for anyone to work with me and it was always “we” and generally it was only “me.” And that was how we saw things and I‘d have fake people show up at meetings with me.
Franziska: In Australia?
Andrea: And you know took family and friends into meetings and kind of brief them on the way in and tell them what to expect. Whereas in Canada, it‘s quite exciting if they‘re working with a small business and they also have a lot of quotas to work with particular types of suppliers. So, being a female business owner in Canada is also quite valuable because they must work with a certain percentage of female suppliers as well. So, however you see that for us, that can be an advantage.
Franziska: Interesting. Wow. That‘s really interesting because I guess it‘s because of your target market, because I actually found, coming from Europe and Switzerland which is definitely a little bit more conservative in the business world. I found Australia pretty relaxed and open when it comes to whether it‘s a small business but I guess you play in a different market and that‘s where you have to look bigger maybe in this market here now.
Andrea: That mentality has only become acceptable globally really over the last 10 or five years. I‘ve been in business for 13 years so I‘m probably going back to almost 10 years ago when we started. Being a small business was not cool. Whereas now…
Franziska: It‘s changed. Exactly. Now let‘s talk just briefly about how you market your business because obviously our listeners they love marketing, hopefully, well I think that they love marketing strategies. They might not. But because I do, let‘s talk a little bit about how you market your business and your favorite marketing strategies.
Andrea: For us, it‘s about developing relationships and as I‘m sure you talk to your customers, we have kind of four levels of a marketing strategy that we would build for a company to attract people to their business and we would use that similarly when we‘re working with clients. So there‘s always that awareness phase, which branding the market. So that‘s for us, that‘s about general media and that can be online ads or it can be sponsoring a conference or putting an ad in a conference magazine. The engagement phase, we have four phases: awareness, engagement, consideration and conversion. And under the engagement phase, that‘s where we really sit well and where my favorite part of marketing exists. And that is the eyeball-to-eyeball type of marketing. So, we host a lot of events. We release a lot of white papers and then present them at different seminars. We attend a lot of conferences. We speak at lots of things. And that gives us an opportunity to tell our story as well as share experiences with our clients and more so than anything, our core purpose as a business is to make our clients look like rock stars. So we showcase our clients as much as possible. We will take them on road shows. We will put them in front of their peers and interview them so that they can share their experience around developing their employment brand. And that works really well for both of you. And those are absolutely my favorite ways because it allows the client to be seen as a thought leader within their industry. Whenever the work that they‘re doing, they are having to be innovators and risk takers. So, it‘s allowing them to really be celebrated for that experience and then secondly, for us, it really shows us that we want to help clients and support them in this. Not be seen in their business as a be-all and an end-all, but to support them on that journey. So that engagement stuff is really valuable and then we also share those experiences through social media and locked LinkedIn groups so that they‘re only sharing it with peers that are of relevance and then we share that globally as well. And then there‘s a number of other techniques. But those are really my favorites around getting our business in the eyes of our target market.
Franziska: Awesome. I love it. And that‘s definitely for I guess for your market doing the eyeball-to-eyeball thing it obviously still works. Now you know how there‘s a lot of online marketing it’s fantastic, but there are too many people that think that that‘s the only way that nowadays you market, but even in today‘s world where we do sit behind a computer a lot, the whole eyeball-to-eyeball meeting people is still absolutely valuable especially in the corporate market.
Andrea: It‘s almost sexier now than it has been.
Franziska: Yeah, yeah. It is.
Andrea: And you know, been having conversations online which is fantastic, but you get so much information. So you have to be able to filter and therefore you have to be proactive about filtering that information. Whereas if you‘ve got someone else saying, “I know that you want to hear about this information.” You get an experience to just sit there and let someone else make the decisions on what you‘re listening to for that period of time. And it‘s absolutely within your realm. So it‘s target market, obviously. But you‘re actually delivering it instead of people having to search for it. Which can sometimes be a little exhausting for the user.
Franziska: Exactly. Now where to next with your business? What do you…? Do you have any future plans? I‘m sure you do. Are you going to other countries? What‘s next?
Andrea: So there‘s lots. At the moment we‘re about to re-brand our company name and split into two different businesses. Which is really interesting and lots of fun. We‘re transforming one of our products which I can‘t really talk about at the moment. But that will be released as of February. Our employer branding agency, we‘re looking to take into other countries and have some defined relationships with our key partners there. And then our new product we‘re actually looking to franchise around the world. So, yeah, that‘s what we‘re doing immediately over the next six months is that new product and re-branding and then we‘re also selling one of our businesses at the moment as well. So we‘re selling our distribution business and looking to sell that in the next couple of months.
Franziska: So you‘re obviously keeping busy. There‘s nothing about going on a one year holiday or anything like that.
Andrea: Happens. His blue sky thinking.
Franziska: Oh, love it. What‘s the weirdest or funniest thing that has ever happened to you and I‘m sure you have a lot of stories so let‘s hear at least one.
Andrea: It‘s funny I read this and I thought oh, gosh, I‘m not quite sure. Look, I had a client who I was trying to get to advertise with us and he said he would buy a year‘s worth of advertising if I slept with him and became his mistress. So that would… And I was flattered at one stage. But, horrified at the other.
Franziska: Wow. That‘s interesting.
Andrea: Really embarrassing things. I was at a conference and I was strutting through this conference thinking I was everything and I just had one deliver a great presentation and I was, oh, I‘m going to get him kind of walk mode. And he was standing there speaking to one of our clients and I tripped over my trousers and fell flat on my face.
Franziska: All right. That‘s awesome.
Andrea: It was… a very big client. And he would not look at me. I spoke to him for an hour and 10 minutes and he would not look up. Never looked up. Stared at the desk the whole time. Took notes. A half million dollar a year type of person and I had one of my team members with me who was a male and he said one word and this guy looked up and addressed him and then ended up talking about running shoes for 20 minutes.
Franziska: Well maybe he was just nervous. You know.
Andrea: No, I think he was just a jerk.
Franziska: Thank you so much. And thanks for all the information. I think you‘ve shared so much in the last 30 minutes or so, so thank you so, so, so much from everyone who is listening, too. Where can people find out more about you and your business? How can they connect?
Andrea: You can find me on LinkedIn. I‘m just Andrea Culligan. Nothing too complicated; C-U-L-L-I-G-A-N. And you can find out about our business on the unimailgroup.com and it‘ll tell you a little bit about what we do in both countries. If you have any questions, feel free to just email me and ask.
Franziska: Awesome. I‘ll post some links in the show notes too so people can come and check you out. So thank you so much Andrea.
Andrea: Andrea. Enough. Remember that.
Franziska: All right, thanks Andrea.
Andrea: Merry Christmas.
Franziska: You, too, thank you so much.