Why has Digital Marketplace expert Pauline Yau teamed up with a marketing strategy team? Simple: help SMEs like you be more effective in selling to the UK public sector. This is what we were told when we reached out to find out more.
Who are Pauline Yau and Tim Bush?
Pauline Yau has worked in technology sales for over 25 years. She built the public sector business for Huddle, a UK tech-start up providing a cloud collaboration platform in to the top sales performer on the G-Cloud marketplace, and then moved on to Microsoft to run its UK central government business. Since 2017, Pauline has worked on a freelance basis helping technology companies engage with UK public sector customers: she also has customer-side experience from working inside a Whitehall digital, data and technology function helping them to create a new business partnering team and always have the user at the centre of everything they do.
Tim Bush has worked in marketing for over 20 years helping EdTech, SaaS, public sector and professional services organisations achieve their business goals. Tim is now the co-founder of marketing strategy agency, BULLDOG & MAPLE. Whether it’s transforming Microsoft’s presence at the Bett Show, creating a customer success engine from the ground up, developing a podcasting web app used to share Prime Ministers Question Time to the world or launching a global EdTech conference, Tim is passionate about finding unique ways to inform, surprise and delight customers and scale our client’s business.
What is Bulldog & Maple all about?
BULLDOG & MAPLE is an impact-focused marketing and communications strategy agency who helps their clients achieve business goals through insight driven strategies, community building and creative storytelling.
The co-founders, Tim Bush and Marcy Richardson, have a varied background across B2B and B2C. After over 35 combined years working in senior brand, marketing and digital roles for some of the most respected brands in the world, such as, Microsoft, The Financial Times, NET-A-PORTER, Paul Smith, ELLE Magazine, Urban Outfitters the University of London, to name a few, they brought together their shared passion for storytelling and marketing to create the agency they always wanted to work with themselves, but could never find.
BULLDOG & MAPLE provide a wide range of services. These include, sales and marketing strategy, creative services and campaign development and execution and are focused on building relationships, helping find new customers and, ultimately, scaling clients business.
Pauline, you have joined Bulldog & Maple as an Associate. What is it you have been asked to come and help out with?
Tim and I worked together in the public sector team at Microsoft. Tim is a superb public sector marketeer and together with my knowledge and experience of public sector sales we make a formidable public sector sales and marketing team! I felt that by joining forces with Tim’s company, Bulldog & Maple we could offer a very unique proposition to technology providers wanting to sell more of their services to UK public sector organisations.
Specifically, you will be helping cloud hosting, software and support suppliers enhance and grow their public sector business with a tailored sales and marketing solution. Can you tell us more? Sounds exciting!
Success in public sector requires a deep understanding of the specific processes, key decision makers, communities, messaging and overall engagement strategies to increase awareness and sales of a technology or digital service.
Our package for vendors on The Digital Marketplace provides everything required for a supplier to build and extend their business to the public sector. The package incorporates all the guidance, insight and support required to drive a suppliers commercial activities into public sector. More specifically, it includes the development of a comprehensive insight driven sales and marketing strategy, revenue and marketing objectives, messaging framework and a 12 month tactical plan. Sales workshops are also included to ensure supplier’s sales teams are fully prepared.
We can also work with suppliers on an ongoing basis to oversee the implementation and execution of the marketing elements of the plan to ensure their organisation is successful. Additionally, we can also act as a sales lead for a supplier, or run additional workshops, to fine tune sales engagement processes, where required.
Simply put, we help simplify the complex and help clients fulfill their potential and make an impact in the public sector market
What kind of companies do you think will benefit most from this kind of help?
Any technology or services provider who wants to generate more business from UK public sector customers. A lot of suppliers got on to the UK government’s Digital Marketplace procurement framework and expected to see sales come flooding through the door as a result, but the Digital Marketplace just doesn’t work like that: getting on to the framework and earning your right to be able to transact with public sector customers is one thing but getting messaging right and raising awareness is another. According to sales figures from the Digital Marketplace, during 2018 only 28% of suppliers sold more than £50,000 worth of their services to public sector customers. Public sector is a unique market and requires time, effort and ensuring that your proposition resonates with the priorities of public sector customers. That’s where Tim and I come in because we have the expertise and wide networks across public sector to know what works and what doesn’t.
Sounds great: how can one of the vendors who read Think Digital Partners get onboard?
We can help make sense of the complex. Those suppliers looking to take the first step to scaling their public sector business can contact the BULLDOG & MAPLE team via the website.
