Reading Time: 10 Minutes
Three senior people from Nviro talk about how they’ve used Watertight Thinking in their business and the impact it’s had for each of them.
Nviro – a Watertight Thinking case study
Nviro is a specialist provider of clean, hygienic and safe environments for the education and local government sectors in London, the South and South East. Founded in 1992, they now employ over 1,300 people with a c.£20million turnover.
Keen to champion and change the way that cleaning services are perceived, Nviro’s MD, Brian Warren found himself at an event where founder of Watertight Marketing, Bryony Thomas, was speaking. It was to be the start of changing not only how Nviro thought about marketing, but also transformed their understanding of the customer journey and led to their status as an employer of choice in their sector.
What’s more, they’ve won and retained the right kind of clients, something they attribute directly to the impact of embedding Watertight Thinking. So, how did they get to where they are today? Brian Warren picks up the story…
Transforming perceptions
Before entering the cleaning sector, Brian worked in an accountancy practice. Even before the Covid pandemic, he had thought the sector deserved more recognition for the impact cleanliness and hygiene has on people, as he explains. “I knew it was a great industry to be in, but it was easy to get caught up in a route to the bottom in terms of getting things done at the lowest possible price. That missed the point. A lot of thinking goes on and I wanted the cleaning industry to be held in the same regard as that of accountancy as a professional service. I knew that was going to take a massive journey to get clients and employees thinking this way – and then Covid struck, and the market was educated overnight. But, while customers now understood our sector, we knew we needed a process to help them recognise us as a business and the value we bring.”
“It’s not marketing to me, it’s a way of business thinking. It’s about how can we analyse what’s happening and what stage are we at with our customers – and then how to take them onto the next.”
~ Brian Warren, Managing Director
At the same time, Brian realised that Nviro’s small marketing function was doing the classic reactive work often focused on awareness. They weren’t able to step back to understand the wider customer journey and how the business could support and educate buyers through the different stages. Part of the problem lay in not having a logical process, which is one of the reasons Brian engaged with Bryony’s talk. “The Watertight framework is about taking people on a journey that is logical. Marketing shouldn’t feel scary or too complicated, but it often does. I think the Watertight process really simplifies it. It’s starting at one point and taking them on a journey, through a series of steps. That’s why it makes so much sense. It’s not marketing to me, it’s a way of business thinking. It’s about how can we analyse what’s happening and what stage are we at with our customers – and then how to take them onto the next step. And it works for how we engage our people, just as much as our customers.”
A new start for marketing
A crucial stage in taking a new way of thinking and actually making it happen was in the appointment of a new marketing director. Brian had the vision and the passion, but a busy MD has a lot to juggle. Enter Melanie Osborne, who joined the business in March 2022. Melanie sets the scene on her arrival. “Our marketing activity was very much driven by sales, responding to requests for presentations or bids. It was all very reactive and without any thought or any clarity around the vision or the strategic objectives. For me, it’s the structure that makes Watertight Marketing such an effective approach and this makes it really clear for other people to understand. That’s really helped people who are not marketers to actually get the structure of marketing and understand why it matters.”
“We’re now taking customers on a logical journey, as opposed to just going scattergun out for awareness building.”
~ Melanie Osborne, Marketing Director
In terms of take-up, how did Melanie get the process embedded in the business – and what has that meant to how marketing is perceived? “We started to run a series of what we called MD drop-in sessions doing something every month with all the staff, talking about what it meant and what our purpose and vision was. As a result, everybody’s now very much on board and understands what that is and what that means for our customers. They can see why we would do certain things at certain times, and that we’re taking customers on a logical journey, as opposed to just going scattergun out for awareness building.”
From employer – to employer of choice
The cleaning industry is a very people centric business, it’s a service delivered by people on the ground, in client locations. Therefore, the need to look after their people has never been lost on Brian. Whether they buy Nviro’s services or consider them as an employer, they are both engaged in a customer journey and it’s one that they can choose to leave at any stage. Brian explains his take on why it matters to engage and recruit the right people too. “My thing has always been that we need to look after our people. Do that and they will look after our clients. You’ve got to get your people culture right. Just like a new customer, you have to get the welcome right. You’ve got to get them motivated, engaged and you’ve got to get them skilled. So, we focused all our efforts on delivering a great employee experience, and we’ve only achieved it because our whole people attraction strategy has been based around Watertight methodology.”
“There’s nobody else in our industry who’s doing the people side as well as we are, and that is down to Watertight.”
~ Brian Warren, Managing Director
And the results are there to see. In an industry that often struggles to recruit, Nviro has an all-time low vacancy rate. And that’s not all, as Brian is keen to point out. “Our staff retention is amazing too. I think our people engagement is second to none – because we have every aspect of the employee journey covered, just as we would a customer. There’s nobody else in our industry who’s doing the people side as well as we are, and that is down to Watertight.” What’s more, there’s nothing that shouts ‘employer of choice’ better than people choosing to join. Melanie believes this is because the vision is clear, and that’s attracting interest. “We’ve recently recruited people who were not looking for jobs, who were not active in the market. They saw something that we did, and because we understood the candidate journey, they came on that journey and really bought into the whole vision, and that’s probably been the most powerful. And from a cost perspective, they came to us, so that’s saved us budget too.”
The ROI and results
While implementing Watertight Thinking has given structure and focus to Nviro’s marketing and people strategies, it’s been an investment in both budget and time. Marc Goodey is Nviro’s Finance Director, so what is his take on where that money has been spent? “For us, the commitment involved a big jump in what we would ordinarily spend. But, as we knew, we’d previously been quite reactive to opportunities and had even been burned by winning business that turned out to be not so right for us. That can cause problems that impact on costs. We were quite good at retaining clients but also sporadic in winning new contracts and growing the business. So, we saw the Watertight approach as a way of trying to smooth this all out and be a bit more controlled in our growth. I also think there’s a view that you spend some money, you generate more sales. But as you learn more and more about the approach, it’s also as much about keeping hold of what you’ve already got and then understanding the buying journey that people go through. Of course, it’s also helped us with our resourcing so that’s been an added bonus.”
“I’d say can you afford NOT to do this? Because actually it’s got a medium and longer term benefit rather than a short-term fix.”
~ Marc Goodey, Finance Director
Marc has also seen the unifying impact the Watertight approach has had across the business. “We are much more together as a business and we understand what we are all doing, why each team might need some information and why marketing is an important conversation to have. It’s this broader business impact that to me, as the Finance Director, makes this a valuable investment. I can justify to the rest of the board where I see the investment coming back so it’s been really helpful in helping the business understand the return on those spends. In fact, I would go as far as to say, can you afford NOT to do this? Because actually it’s got a medium and longer term benefit rather than a short-term fix.”
“I’m an accountant by trade so I analyse everything, and I can see exactly where the return is being made from Watertight, it’s 100% and more.”
~ Brian Warren, Managing Director
MD Brian Warren is even more explicit when it comes to ROI. “We’ve recently retained a very significant client and I can happily say that if it wasn’t for the Watertight methodology and way of thinking we would not have retained it. And the reason is that Watertight taught us how to go back to the awareness stage and take the customer through the journey again, so they saw the value. And unless I’d done that, we wouldn’t have won it. And don’t forget, I’m an accountant by trade so I analyse everything, and I can see exactly where the return is being made from Watertight, it’s 100% and more.”
Finding the time
The time involved in embedding a new way of business thinking is often a challenge, and one that can sometimes deter organisations from making a change, so how did Nviro manage this? Brian doesn’t see it is a time commitment, more a way of thinking that the business has built into its way of working. “In fact, if you follow the programme, talk to each other and work on exercises together, it doesn’t feel like a lot of time. When I was first going through the programme I was also running the business and training for a marathon! I found the time; my team found the time. If you want the results – and they are most definitely there, you’ll find the time.”
“Watertight gave us the confidence to make changes, and it freed us from feeling stifled, and helped get us growing sooner.”
~ Marc Goodey, Finance Director
And Marc Goodey shares another thought on time, that Watertight Thinking actually helps a business to start seeing change more quickly. “A lot of organisations don’t have the confidence to actually start. That’s because they can be fearful of taking action unless everything is perfect, so they wait and waste time. Bryony and Watertight have a term – being ‘functional, but not too embarrassing’. This gave us the confidence to make changes, and it freed us from feeling stifled, and helped get us growing sooner.”
