What perfect timing, lockdown 2.0 coinciding with creating a people focused business, when we weren’t able to have any physical contact. I have always said that the key thing you need for the recruitment business is resilience, so how difficult could it be...
Even simple things which were relatively easy in more normal times - like opening a bank account - had their frustrations. Who knew this could take many weeks and that it would be impossible to speak to anyone to rush things on? I know we had enthusiastically encouraged people to move jobs without ever, or only briefly, meeting in person but doing so ourselves - hiring people and making a relatively significant investment in a small business in this time was another thing.
But thanks to help from a small but crucial support team we managed to come up with a name and begin to create a brand in a just few short weeks.
It started with a name...
When I was mulling over the new launch, my mentor and trusted advisor James Bateson suggested a name - he said quick as a flash - call it “Elemar”. In response to my puzzled expression he explained it was my maiden name initials - LMR (Leanne May Rose). I took the thought away and gave it to my other trusted advisor and chief brand consultant (younger daughter Victoria) who played around with it and other ideas and everyone (the family!) decided they loved it. We liked the fact it meant something, but also nothing, or whatever we wanted. We felt it chimed with our focus on diversity - starting with “el/elle”, which can mean he or she in other languages, seemed appropriate.
And then a new colleague...
Time was marching on; it was now around 20 November when Aija, armed with other compelling job offers, decided to take a leap of faith and join the fledging Elemar. And we agreed a start date a week later Monday 30 November. Whilst I had initially been contemplating a relaxed new year launch (2020 being such a rotter!) we felt it was great to get going straightaway. However despite Aija‘s and my enthusiasm, it suddenly dawned on us that as well as boring things like registering with HMRC for the payroll and VAT and putting in place an employment contract, policies, procedures, a pension scheme, IT infrastructure etc, we needed to show some substance - or at least a LinkedIn page (same thing). It being 2020, when one changes job, the change is announced on LinkedIn and we needed to say what we were joining. Time to galvanise the team to create a brand…
A brand is born
With particular help and a big shout out for Toria, who over the weekend of 28/29 November sketched out her ideas for the brand and logo. Toria is working for a terrific brand consultancy in Madrid on her placement year from university and armed with her creativity and an art foundation diploma (great use of a gap year!) combined with business mind, she was ideally placed to help. I feel bad, but am forever grateful, that she was working more than full time and that we sucked up all her free time during this period, but we couldn’t have done it without her.
Toria gave us many pages of possible brand identities and options but we unanimously loved one in particular - the “L” shape at an angle made up of equal signs to represent equality, diversity, inclusion - a visual representation of our core values. A lively debate was to ensue on the choice of colours (purples versus greens) but we all loved the fact that they L logo could would look great in the diversity rainbow colours.
After we selected the logo, Toria worked further on it and sketched the idea on a sheet of paper. By Monday morning, the day Aija had officially started (she had been inputting on brand concepts prior to this), this went to Martyn who began to work his creative magic!
The creative team at work
I had previously enjoyed working with Julia and Martyn on a brand refresh at Fox Rodney and it was great to be working with them again. Within 10 days - by the end of Aija’s first week - we had a graphic designed logo and some images to go with the brand so that we could go live on LinkedIn. We then wrote the copy for the website and by the time we broke up for Christmas we had a working draft of the website we liked and felt we were on track for a proper launch in the first week of January.
Branded Christmas gifts and a photo shoot
Christmas came and went - we had clearly been quite obsessed with the whole brand identity - as my surprise presents were a branded Elemar mug, pens and stickers from Toria and from Eloise a great Elemar desk name plate! Look out for these on future zoom calls!
We managed to arrange a photoshoot for the website between Christmas and New Year. It’s hard to credit that this was the first time Aija and I had physically got together. When working closely with someone - talking multiple times every working day, seeing them on zoom and teams calls - you don’t feel distanced, but it was great to have the excuse for an essential business meeting wrapped up with an essential business lunch (from our favourite sushi shop) including to thank photographer Cath and her assistant Bas for taking the time out in the holidays to accommodate us.
A new year dawns
It is now 3rd January. It was such a huge effort to get the business up and running in a few short weeks. By the time we got to 23 December I felt I was running out of steam... I have always maintained it is a great time to have a total recharge over the Christmas/new year period when emails largely stop. I hadn’t really taken proper time out since launching LTN in autumn 2018. I did manage to have a total break this year but am slightly concerned that lack of activity means we will have no work in 2021!
However, I had promised Martyn a couple of blogs for the website by the time we got back on 4 Jan. So, this is the first one... leaving my homework until the last minute... and by the time you read this we will have officially launched the website and will be looking forward with optimism to a brave new post pandemic world. Best wishes to all for a healthy 2021 and good times ahead.
And some final humble shout outs...
A few additional shout outs before I finish the first blog. To James, Sandra, Danielle, Siobhan, Julia, Martyn, Cath, Jerry, Andy, Andrew, Aija, Huw and co at ACS, Adrian, Victoria and Eloise… Too many to mention but thank you to clients, colleagues, friends and family for your support and help. I also have to give a special mention to the weekly zoom with my 4 girlfriends (we call ourselves the 4 musketeers). Lucy, who ended up in Sydney back in March was the reason we started the zoom initiative, pending her return… is a management consultant with ever reassuring strategic advice, including excellent insight on diversity aspects. Lisa and Sarah are eminent NHS doctors - both have been giving up their precious free time this past week to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. I have such admiration for their work and dedication on the front line. But also as doctors they have to run a business - on a tight budget and constantly lobbying for funds and investment. Launching a business pales into insignificance compared to what they and their colleagues do, not just now when attention is on them, but on a daily basis. They are such rocks, and it has been great to be there for each other each and every Wednesday evening as the year rolled on discussing work, the Aussie elimination approach versus UK response, not seeing our ageing parents, lots of our respective student offspring with Covid (what students didn’t get it?), one husband even hospitalized with Covid but thankfully recovered. What a year. Thank you my friends, including all those not mentioned.
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