Your Allies in the Fortuna 50: one of the fastest growing women-led UK SMEs

The Centre for Entrepreneurship has ranked Your Allies (formerly Marke2ing) 2nd in this year’s Fortuna 50!

The Fortuna 50 index lists the fastest growing women-led UK SMEs. And this year Your Allies is one of those businesses recognised for its growth and entrepreneurship.

We couldn’t be more pleased to be placed number 2 in the Fortuna 50. Helping London SMEs grow through corporate calibre marketing is what we do. To be recognised for our own growth is a real acknowledgement.

Next on our growth plan: more marketing directors

As we grow we can offer more people with the right marketing director experience to grow with us. Women tend to look for flexible work options more often than men. That’s why they’ll find find our associate model attractive.

Our part-time business model means that they can work on marketing director jobs starting from just 1 day a week. Presence at clients is required only for some of the time. Primarily the work is delivered from their home office, collaborating with the client and the Your Allies team via the cloud.

Of course there’s the added benefit of being part of a team of senior marketing people. We all work together in this flexible, cloud-based system. Then once a month we come together to talk about learnings and what’s next.

We keep each other on our toes, support each other and grow Your Allies together.

The biggest learning from our growth so far

We’ve achieved a good growth rate, plan to grow further and are looking to recruit associates. It’s all down to hard work. Anyone thinking about becoming their own boss needs to be prepared to put in a lot of time and effort to make this happen.

One thing we’ve found really useful as new entrepreneurs is to bring in expert advice. This can be in the form of a mentor who has done what you’re trying to do. Or a consultant with relevant experience.

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing – we wish we’d brought in expert advice sooner. You want someone to question your assumptions, hold you accountable and bring something new to the table.

One thing is for sure: founding our own business has been a rewarding experience. We’d do it again. And we’re likely to go on to go on to found another.

Congratulations are in order

Congratulations to all fellow female business leaders who’ve also been recognised as fastest growing women-led UK SMEs alongside us. Here’s to another year of phenomenal business growth.

Read the Centre for Entrepreneurs’ press release here.

Image credit: Red Chairs by Jeshu John