INTERVIEW:Tara Dalrymple, Busy Lizzie Lifestyle Management talks to PETER CLUSKEY

MARKETING MAY not seem like a priority when you’re a small business with more work than you can cope with. But when that work dries up, will you have the know-how to get out into the marketplace and rebuild your customer base?

“A lot of small businesses and sole traders are finding this a serious obstacle,” says Tara Dalrymple (32) of Galway-based lifestyle management company Busy Lizzie. “They’ve been riding the wave for so long, they’ve never really had to sell . . .

“So while they’re completely comfortable about being the front man or woman when it comes to interacting with customers and using their professional expertise, they’re very uncomfortable trying to drum up new business from a standing start.”

She says she is “constantly amazed”, for instance, at the number of small companies that do not follow up new business leads. “They just let them go cold,” she says.

“So one of the first things we do is put in place proper systems to capture leads and start lead generation. We put systems in place for e-mail address capture, we suggest phone scripts and HTML boxes on websites so that visitors can sign up for newsletters with new product information.”

She says the idea is to tap every single resource and start creating a marketing database.

“And, of course, we make the marketing calls on the client’s behalf. That has twin benefits: if the client’s not happy doing it, it’s better that someone else does; and, if it’s a one-man band, it’s better that the person cold-calling is not also the principal. It makes a business seem bigger.”

Providing on-call marketing expertise was not where Dalrymple intended to take Busy Lizzie Lifestyle Management when she set it up in the halcyon days of 2005, not that she’s ever been prescriptive about how a new business should grow.

“My father, who’s in his seventies now, was a multiple entrepreneur and I’ve always been a firm believer in diversification. I’m an ideas person. I listen to my clients and so I go where the market takes me, I suppose.”

The idea behind Busy Lizzie was, and largely still is, to provide lifestyle management for cash- rich, time-poor high-fliers, though this market has been more than a little battered by the recession.

“It’s a concierge service, like having a PA at your side. If you need a plumber, we’ll organise one. We’ll go shopping for birthday or Christmas presents. We’ll do the weekly shop and unpack it afterwards. We’ll arrange holidays, pay bills,” she says.

“The idea is to become part of the family, to see where the stresses are in terms of time and to manage those stresses. And while some of that has dropped off as people re-evaluate their budgets, others still realise that, when household burdens are lifted from them, they have more time to concentrate on work.”

Busy Lizzie is small but growing, with a turnover this year of about €150,000. However, since the business was established, the emphasis has moved away from the well-off individual market towards providing back-office support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

“That support can range from providing a virtual secretary for a business, to providing a real one who’ll go into the office for a few hours a week, to selling bundles of secretarial time which a business can use over, say, a month. Then we do electronic marketing, branding, web and print design, and focus-group research,” says Dalrymple. “Yes, the business has changed a lot since the first model but, then, so has the world we’re living and working in.”

On The Record

Name: Tara Dalrymple

Company: Busy Lizzie Lifestyle Management, www.busylizzie.ie

Job: Founder and managing director.

Age: 32.

Background: Graduated from University of Gloucestershire in 1999 with a degree in human geography and business IT and joined UK PR agency Staniforth. Subsequently worked with publisher Dorling Kindersley and Marks Spencer.

Set up Busy Lizzie Lifestyle Management in Galway in 2005, the year she was named BPW Innovative Businesswoman of the Year. Finalist in Image magazine’s Young Businesswoman of the Year awards in 2008.

Challenges: "We're fighting the same battles as most other companies, including our own clients, so our key challenges are cash flow, gaining competitive advantage and, to a lesser degree, managing in a contracting market."

Inspired by: Anita Roddick. "She's always been a great inspiration to me, fighting for people and the environment long before corporate social responsibility had the high profile it has now. I'm dyslexic, so I also have great admiration for Sir Richard Branson, who's achieved so much despite being . . . dyslexic."

Most important thing learned so far: "To create a good team of people around you, whether they're family, friends or employees. Also, never be afraid to ask for help."