Spotlight Series: Ethos Farm
Legacy Club goes under the hood of some early stage entrepreneurs, to see what makes them and their businesses tick!
Customer Experience Consultancy Ethos Farm - Founder Sally Alington
Please tell us a little bit about you the person (not you the business owner): An avid traveller and aviation geek, I am a people person which probably explains how I came to create a business that satisfies my love of working with people in airports, on aircraft, cruise ships, in retail .. all over the world!
Describe your business in less than 30 words: Ethos Farm is a customer experience consultancy. We believe people are the most important part of any customer experience and so we consult, train and offer staffing solutions.
What industry or sector does your business fall in to?: Customer Experience Consultancy (across industries)
What did you do before you started your business?: I was Managing Director of Europe's largest Aviation Customer Service & Travel Retail Staffing Agency. We provided flexible staffing to airports across the UK, Ireland and in the Middle East - anything from customer service ambassadors, to whisky specialists in Duty Free.
What have been the biggest struggles that you have encountered, and what did you do to overcome them?: I think the biggest challenge in starting a new business is getting your first client. No one wants to be the first and every will always ask you who uses your product/ service. It is difficult to not solely focus on what you did before although that can certainly provide good back-up credentials. To overcome this we endeavoured to build 'noise' online about our brand, share ideas and information, thought-leadership and demonstrate our expertise in this field. We take every opportunity to participate in conferences, presenting/ speaking/ panel discussions. Soon enough we built up enough of a presence to support our business development.
Have you had any external investment to date?: Yes
What has been the impact of COVID-19 on your business and did you make any changes, or pivots?: Our revenue initially dropped by approx 75% compared to 2019 , however we made early decisions, took all the government support, accessed all support lines and focused on the parts of our business that actually could be needed more than ever (e-Learning as an example). We also began to offer B2C training not only B2B. We also endeavoured to be the first movers with Customer Service training while physical distancing/ wearing PPE and we got big industry accreditations on this like the Airports Council International - this has led to us acquiring 50 new global airport customers during Covid. We have clawed back revenue to just -22% YOY and managed to drive a more profitable business through our fast decision making.
Do you have any business heroes, if so, who are they?: If you look to aviation (one of my personal and professional passions) there are so many heroes in general. Amelie Earhart for her fearless ability to just go for her goals in life and set the bar for women everywhere and Captain Chelsey 'Sully' Sullenberger for his immense decision making and keeping calm approach. If I truly focus on business then Richard Reed one of the founders of Innocent has a amazing story about how he and his co-founders decided to chuck in their jobs and start the company.
Financial Rewards or Business Awards?: Business Awards
What was the last book you read?: Face it - the Blondie (Debbie Harry) autobiography
Tell us something totally unique about your business: We secured funding from a Fortune 500, NYSE-listed organisation before we even had our first client.
Finally, please tell us what we can look forward to with your business as we head in to 2021: Ethos Farm is becoming recognised as one of the leading businesses in the Customer Experience space and part of that is because of our innovative solutions and ability to make doing business with us easy. Look out in 2021 for even more from Ethos Farm Americas (we have an office in New York) and introducing innovative ways of working to global aviation and retail businesses.
