Year in Review 2022 @ Design Prodigy

Goodbye 2022 and Welcome 2023

2022 was the year Singapore successfully transitioned to living with Covid-19 as all pandemic related restrictive measures were lifted. It was a huge victory for all of us as we could finally get our lives back in this new normal. Though over the last three years, I've realised that it is better to assume that nothing is normal in this new normal.

We shall not be lulled to believe that it was time to switch off our "En Garde" mode. Hence, we wasted no time to start preparing our response for rising inflation and increasing likelihood of recession in the near future.

I've penned my highlight moments and reflections in 2022 for supporters and those interested in Design Prodigy.

Smooth Team Renewal

We were not immune to the wave of Great Resignation. Most of our beloved Pandemic Team has moved on to MNCs to continue their incredible career trajectory. This time, there was no drama like 2019.

What touched me the most was the open communication and trust we had in managing the transition. In particular, a team member remembered how painful it was when there were sudden departures. He notified me 6 months prior that he was looking for the next opportunity. I had the time to prepare and the rest of younger team had the time to process renewal process and maximised the time to observe and learn from him. He did not need to do this, but the team and me were grateful of his special consideration and efforts.

This Pandemic Team had fought and achieved for Design Prodigy through these very difficult times. They had set a high bar for our current "Stagflation Team". What made them so amazing, was that they even made sure to set up next team for success.

For the last few years, we had been working on our talent flow model, continually sharpening our polymathic talent identification and strengthening our structures to enable new talents to develop their productivity quickly. This ensured that the succeeding team, with similar a DNA, is ready when the transition started.

This was perhaps my greatest joy for 2022.

Game Recognise Game

One Alumni left for an Unicorn company and soon started recommending Design Prodigy to help augment their Marketo Operations team. We successfully onboard this Unicorn company as our new client (Possibly our best "business development" move ever! lol) and very quickly received accolades from this Alumni.

Yuanwen has improved greatly in terms of both technical skill and client management since I first met her. Ben although only a few months in has managed to catch an error that we made in one of our programs.

There was a saying "Game Recognises Game". I could not agree more.

HR lessons learnt from this experience

We learnt that most talents stay in a company for 2-3 years, while a few may stay up to about 5-6 years before moving on for new experience or growth opportunities. Here in Design Prodigy, we aim to hire high potential polymathic talents, expose them to tough and novel challenges, equip them with high value skills and place them on a fast career trajectory. Hence, it was no surprise that many of them will be headhunted by illustrious companies (One of our team member was headhunted with only 6 months experience).

I was half joking to my colleagues that I am more worried if no one is headhunting them!

All these will only work if Design Prodigy was exceptional with talents. We depended on our company culture, personalised career pathways and co-investing in their growth, in order to continue attract and retain exceptional talents.

Strengthening Our Marketing Method

Another notable development in 2022 was our marketing method being strengthened.

In Q1 2022, we ran a local prospecting campaign that yielded only 7 leads for sales over 3 months period. The result was so bad that I was hopping mad. I was at a complete loss of how to explain why it was THAT shockingly bad. We were determined to put this right.

So we tore up our then prospecting playbook and took great care to develop a new prospecting system with a clear troubleshooting framework to tweak the tactics on the fly.

By Q3 2022, we came back with a vengeance and delivered an Asia regional prospecting campaign targeting mid-markets for another IT MNC. This time we yielded 429 sales leads over 4 months. At the beginning, it was still a little tentative for us as the Q1 failure was still fresh in our memory. As weeks went by, our tweaks started to work and leads started to flow and being accepted by the Sales Development Representatives. There after, it became a joy during our weekly meetings, as we started seeing opportunities pipelines being created and sales being closed (usually with virtual high fives).

Q4 2022, we had opportunity for another local prospecting campaign so it was an excellent opportunity to lay our Q1 ghost to rest once and for all. This time we achieved an amazing 300% improvements as we managed to deliver 21 meeting requests (as compared to 7 in Q1) for Sales Development Team to follow up from targeted accounts.

Victory never tasted so good.

It reminded us not to blindly follow popular methods and copy paste for all campaigns. Nothing beats a robust system to clarify the client's marketing strategy before selecting and contextualising the tactics to achieve the objectives. Having good control over our marketing method means less ghosts for us to lay to rest in the future!

Referrals

One final interesting phenomena of 2022 to share, I observed a marked increase in referrals (good B2B companies too) towards the end of the year. We usually get 1 or max 2 referrals a year, and sometimes not the ideal customer profile. Yet just November and December alone, we received 9 referrals! A referred lead shared that:

One of my ex colleagues mentioned that DP is a good agency

It really meant a lot to all of us here at Design Prodigy. It felt like our determination to help crack B2B marketing in Asia had brought us to a good level.

Big thank you to our supporters for recommending us to fellow B2B marketers. Rest assure, we will not be complacent and will continue to strive to hone our craft so that we can reliably diagnose, design and deliver the marketing outcomes for your friends.

2023 Ready

Granted we may not predict all the surprises 2023 may bring, but we were much more prepared to face any surprises now compared to three years ago.

We will be big on pairing Marketing Intelligence and Marketing Operations. We are also looking into a new Mar Ops managed services, with a more precise Omni channel approach, to support right content to right audience at the right time. In the period of stagflation, anything that can help B2B marketers do more with less, I think will be appreciated.

We were excited about the opportunities and possibilities in 2023 and we hope for the good fortune to work with the right people (talent, client and partners alike) and wisdom to pick the right development projects to invest. We remain steadfast to our path that had brought success through turbulent times by being exceptional and be vigilant to distractions and temptations to be normal. (Sounds like a pledge, maybe I should consider one... lol)

You have reached the end of my Year end review article. I want to thank you for being part of Design Prodigy's journey.

I wish for you adaptability, resilience and an enterprising spirit to triumph and profit amongst these flux of change. Onward!

PS: Also do watch out for the Ungoogleable Challenge, something exciting is brewing :)