Revolutionising the SME Business Services Landscape

An interview with William Maughan, Co-Founder of isme|&|co

The Small and Medium-Sized Business (SME) sector has long grappled with inefficiencies and challenges in accessing and providing essential business services. To shed light on these issues and offer insights into a groundbreaking solution, we spoke with William Maughan, Co-Founder of isme|&|co.?

In this interview William delves into the tangled problems faced by both buyers and sellers in the SME business services market and explains how the time is right for isme|&|co to revolutionise the market.

What did you do before starting isme|&|co ?

“I led a right brained management consultancy called Industrial Clairvoyants for 23 years. We specialised in creating and implementing emotionally intelligent strategies for businesses and brands. This helped them grow marketshare and transform the relationships they had with their customers and internal teams into stickier, more engaging experiences.”

What was it like leading that business?

“Nothing new here, but as anyone who runs their own business will tell you, the thing that?keeps you awake at night is the constant uncertainty about where new business is coming from.”

“It didn’t matter that we had internationally renowned clients like Virgin Group, BT, Diageo, The John Lewis Partnership to name drop a few! The buck stops with you as a business owner, you have to haul out and haul up new business. That can be tough.”

“There’s no easy way to get your voice heard and reach more of the right kind of clients, more of the time.”

Is that why you started isme|&|co, to make it easier for businesses to find more new business, more of the right clients?

“Absolutely, but that’s only half of it, SMEs also face significant challenges finding the right people to work with when it comes to buying in professional services.”

“Previously my Co-Founder Tim led, scaled and sold businesses. He’ll be quick to tell you it always took much more time than it should have done to identify the best people to work with.”

“Our experiences of running businesses on both sides of the SME-2-SME market compelled us to start isme|&|co. We both feel there has to be a better way.”?

What’s your view of the current SME landscape?

“The SME business services market, where isme|&|co is focused, is vast and fragmented, which causes friction for both buyers and sellers. It’s also super antiquated when it comes to technology and digitisation, lagging far behind enterprise and larger corporate businesses.”?

“In the UK, SMEs spend over ￡255 billion a year buying in services like HR, IT, Legal Advice, Finance, Insurance and Marketing etc. It’s calculated ￡58 billion of this is wasted because it makes no difference to the commissioning business or they fail to see a return on the investment.”

“On the flip side, business service providers invest around ￡31 billion each year on marketing and business development, trying to generate leads and reach new prospects. Pretty much all of which is cold prospecting.”?

“For a long time it’s struck me as madness to spend large sums of money building your brochure website, then spend money on marketing and networking and other forms of cold outreach, in a valiant attempt to bring the world (and hopefully some potential new customers) back to your website. That same website is very quickly out of date and then costs more money to update.“

“And yet we keep doing this expecting different results.”

What are the challenges for Buyers of business services?

“The complexity, fragmentation and antiquated nature of the market leads to inertia and hesitation in decision-making. Even when you’ve identified a short list, and that takes far too long, the process of comparing suppliers becomes overwhelming, which leads to a lack of engagement with external service providers. Everything slows down precisely at the time you need to be addressing an issue in your business.”

“This is why SME productivity is nothing like that of larger companies. And it’s not unique to the UK. Globally, SME productivity lags behind because of the lack of sufficient in-house functional expertise and because of the structural inefficiencies SMEs face when needing to find the right external help and support to buy in.”

“A McKinsey study suggests halving the SME productivity gap globally would amount to $15 trillion in added value to Global GDP, roughly 7%.”

What are the challenges for Sellers of business services?

“Providers of business services, especially SMEs, also encounter obstacles when trying to reach and sell to their target audience.”

“Traditional outreach methods such as in-person networking and advertising are really inefficient and resource-intensive.”

“The cost, increasing complexity of digital advertising and time it takes is beyond the capabilities of most small companies. Sure, social platforms make it easy to give-it-a-go, launch an ad or two but it’s really easy to waste budget and come up with a handful of nothing. Every week I speak with business owners who’ve tried digital marketing in some form or other. They set aside a budget, watch it drain away with no leads or returns to show for it. It's very difficult to go it alone and see any meaningful ROI in the digital marketing space."

“And now we have ever changing data privacy rules which add further challenges. How many businesses are regularly checking they are still GDPR compliant as they grow and evolve?”

“SME service providers are really under catered for, they have a pressing need for new, innovative channels to help them connect with their prospective customers. And in a way that isn’t just more of the same cold prospecting.”

What’s the answer and how is isme|&|co making a difference?

“isme|&|co is a Digital Market Network designed specifically for SME-2-SME business services. We're focused on providing liquidity to both sides of the market. Typically you don’t see that, usually only one side of the market, buyers or sellers is addressed at any one time.”

“isme|&|co brings together expert content, a pre-vetted and approved directory of business service providers, and a thriving membership of 1000s of like-minded SME owners and managers.”

“We enable all professional services businesses like HR, Legal Practices, Marketing Agencies etc to target their customers more efficiently and effectively by being part of a well defined marketplace. Which, by its very nature, is a warmer place for new business because there are buyers motivated and already actively looking for help.”

“Buyers, typically owners and managers of SMEs looking for help and advice, can be matched to reliable, relevant information and the right approved providers from all over the UK. All in a more efficient and cost effective way.”

Tell us a bit more about the isme|&|co business model?

“We have a tiered monthly rolling subscription for business service providers who want to be approved and listed in our marketplace. The subscription levels are based on the number of employees the business has. Making isme|&|co an affordable business development channel for Solo, Micro, Small and Medium sized businesses up to 250 employees.”

“isme|&|co is currently free to use for businesses looking for help and support from the approved business services providers in our marketplace.”

Why now?

“We’re increasingly hearing about the ‘Consumerisation of B2B’. A recent Gartner study predicts 80% of B2B businesses will be buying business services online by 2026.”

“isme|&|co applies existing technology, which we take for granted as consumers, combined with aspects of AI to reduce friction, time and inefficiencies for both buyers and sellers of professional services.”

“Being part of a well defined marketplace such as isme|&|co will become central to SMEs business development strategies.?

How big is the opportunity for isme|&|co?

“I believe isme|&|co can redefine the SME business services market. Think about how Airbnb disrupted the short-term property rental market. We’re building a venture-scale business with the potential to generate ￡100 million annual revenue from the UK market alone.?We’re starting in the UK, our beachhead, before deploying in other countries.”

“At scale isme|&|co will remove the friction I’ve talked about and drive economic growth, prosperity, and transform the SME business services landscape.”

“In essence, isme|&|co goes beyond supporting business services. Wherever you look, in pure numbers, SME’s make up the backbone of pretty much every global economy. This is about equipping SME businesses to thrive, innovate, and contribute to the prosperity of nations.”

With William Maughan, and his Co-Founder Tim Whiston’s shared vision, combined with their extensive experience at its core, isme|&|co stands poised to shape a future where SMEs can unlock their true potential.