"Great employees are like gold, you can never have enough of them."
Founder of Focus On Digital, Ben Miller, launched the business backed by years of delivering complex projects within UK Central Government and enterprise clients such as BP, Churchill Insurance, Clifford Chance, Direct Line Group, and Visa. Ben has taken his skills designing, analyzing, planning, and delivering complex projects, satisfying the most demanding clients, and mixed them with a digital marketing and creative team.
This combination ensures that he can focus on delivering beautiful, responsive websites that reflect the requirements of the client perfectly with his creative and organizational experience. He is a hardworking and dedicated professional. He specializes in Web Design and Development and Search Engine Marketing to help customers build successful PPC campaigns on Adwords (now Google Ads) and maintain and optimize these to ensure the best possible ROI. He is also Google Ads Certified and ready to help you with your next project.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to Valiant CEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Ben Miller: I have had a long and varied career across a variety of sectors including, Banking/Finance, oil and gas, Media, construction, IT, and the Public sector. This gives me a unique insight into the inner workings of these industries, their pain points, and the areas in which they excel. Having spent the majority of my career in senior IT management positions I became interested in the marketing aspects of businesses and was naturally drawn to digital marketing given the trend moving ever more towards this mode of marketing and my background in IT, culminating in the formation of Focus on Digital three years ago.
Who has been the most influential person(s) in your life and how did they impact you? How did that lead to where you are today?
Ben Miller: Someone who has been the most influential person in my life is my father. He gave me the confidence to succeed in life and showed me that you can achieve anything you set your mind to it. I used the same sort of self-belief and determination to do well in marketing and to be successful in the digital world.
2020 was a challenging year for all of us, particularly for businesses. How did the pandemic impact your business? Please list some of the problems that you faced, and how you handled them.
Ben Miller: Coronavirus was hard-hitting in the digital marketing world. At times, we found it hard to drive traffic for our clients of whom we were providing SEO services, PPC services, and landing page design. We explored different approaches and had to be innovative. One of the things we did was to start using alternate platforms to drive traffic. We explored platforms and developed content based on what was trending in the news, and then posted that content on these platforms, with backlinks to our client’s landing pages. This way we drove traffic to our clients, without being overly affected by the virus.
The pandemic led to a myriad of cultural side effects, including one that was quite unexpected that is informally known as “The Great Resignation”. Did this widespread trend affect you in any way?
Ben Miller: In a sense, it was a good thing. It forced companies to be more open to hiring new people and promoting a more diverse workforce. This also gave us the opportunity to work from home, which is a very desirable position for many of us. I believe it opened up a pool of untapped creatives within the industry, and actually led to a few great hires for our company.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021. How do you feel about this trend? Explain.
Ben Miller: These days, people switch jobs more often than they did in the past. While it’s a huge number, it’s not a reason to panic. For the most part, it’s very likely that the 4 million people who quit their jobs simply found a better opportunity. I believe the biggest change for companies will be the need to be creative with their perks in order to obtain and keep top talent.
According to a study by Harvard Business Review, Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. That can be quite an alarming rate. What advice would you share to increase employee retention?
Ben Miller: Great employees are like gold, you can never have enough of them. Moreover, the right employees can make the difference between a good business and a great one. So, it makes sense that you do everything you can to keep them on board. There are several ways to do that, but the most important thing is to show that you value their contribution. This includes everything from providing better benefits to improving their career prospects: including well-defined goals, praising achievements, and giving challenging assignments. Finally, remember that employees want to feel that they are a valued part of the company, that you trust them with responsibility, and that they can make a difference.
According to a Nature Human behavior study, In 2020, 80% of US workers reported feeling that they have too many things to do and not enough time to do them – a phenomenon known as “time poverty”. What is your take on the work-life balance? Explain.
Ben Miller: I think there’s an interesting trend emerging with remote companies allowing employees to work their own hours. Rather than requiring employees to work the traditional 9 – 5, they are just required to get their work done. Evaluations are based entirely on performance. I think this is a fantastic idea for the new workforce and should help employees to find a healthier work-life balance.
A more recent survey by Joblist asked about 3,000 respondents if they’re actively thinking about leaving their job. That survey found that 73% of 2,099 respondents who answered this question on their employment plans are considering quitting. How are you preparing for the future to counter this potentially persistent problem?
Ben Miller: Employees now have more control over their careers than at any other time in history. I believe the remote work trend is here to stay and that means a lot of companies with traditional work environments will need to adjust to attract and keep top talent. Even companies that need employees to come into the office can offer perks like a flexible schedule and some remote workdays to give their employees more control of their workday.
We have fully embraced the remote work trend. I find it to be a major advantage competitively. I am focusing heavily on building a strong culture while still focusing on a remote setup.
Thank you for all that, our readers are grateful for your insightful comments! Now, if the Great Resignation isn’t your greatest concern, what is the #1 most pressing challenge you’re trying to solve in your business right now?
Ben Miller: Our top priority is to develop a creative and profitable way to grow our business. We’ll soon be launching a new online marketing campaign that we think will be a game-changer for our growth. Our hopes are that it will help us reach the next level, operating in a bigger and more profitable capacity.
Before we finish things off, we do have one last question. If you had $10 Million Dollars to spend in one day, what would you spend it on?
Ben Miller: I would buy a larger rival digital marketing business, merge it with ours, and expand our footprint.
Mike Weiss, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Ben Miller for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Ben Miller or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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