We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joe Lippeatt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joe below.

Hi Joe, thanks for joining us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

If a company has the capacity to manage their own accounts, it provides a great deal of authenticity in their messaging, especially when it comes to responding to comments on posts that may be unfavorable or critical. A company’s response to such comments can speak volumes about their character and values.

However, if a company lacks the internal resources to manage their social media accounts, consultant companies such as 24Moves can certainly help by generating and posting content on their behalf. This approach allows the company to focus on other aspects of their business.

At 24Moves, we work closely with our clients to ensure that all Social Media content aligns with their business goals and brand voice. We also offer social media automation tools, allowing companies to post in multiple places simultaneously and schedule posts in advance, which can help reduce costs.

However, we strongly encourage their internal staff to respond to messages and post comments. This fosters a closer relationship between the company and its potential customers, ensuring that communication remains authentic and on brand.

Joe, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After college, I worked long term placements in two companies. It didn’t take long to recognized that marketing teams in small companies often struggle to get dedicated (and marketing-focused) IT and Design expertise on their teams. So I founded 24Moves Consulting, to offer on-demand, professional IT and Design Services to companies not ready to hire full-time staff to fill these roles.

Even if a company has an IT team, their expertise may be limited to desktop, networks, and security support. These are critical roles, but they may lack the necessary marketing-related IT skills, such as website building/performance, advertising, and Google Analytics.

We offer a contract-based model that allows our clients to select services based on their needs and budgets. Our team includes IT experts, WordPress developers, website and marketing design professionals. We can even assist with logo design, advertising, and business cards and help make website text SEO-ready. We also provide 508 and WCAG services to ensure that companies’ websites are accessible to everyone.

Any advice for managing a team?

My leadership style is trust but verify. Team members are smarter, faster, and more creative than I am. As their product manager, I establish specific goals based on client needs and expectations. Then we negotiate reasonable (but often aggressive) delivery dates. When a professional is well-qualified and trusted to fulfill their responsibilities, it empowers them to make reasonable decisions without management hand-holding. That fosters a productive team, collaboration, and ownership of the end product.

Micro-managing is often the result of a manager not able to reflect on their own limitations and trust their professionals. They over-question, criticize, and reject proposed solutions because it wasn’t their idea. This erodes morale and enthusiasm, which self-validates a manager’s incorrect assumption that everyone must be “supervised”.

Before long, professionals become “employees”, and their work product reflects a person who is actively searching for another position where they will be valued.

Trusted professionals perform; micro-managed employees have little enthusiasm and avoid open communication.

At 24Moves, I hire individuals based on specific skill sets, rather than a “jack-of-all-trades” approach. For instance, we have separate individuals for logo, web, and print design tasks. The three fields are related, and they work together towards common marketing design goals. But each has a specific skillset. Our project managers assign tasks to professionals that best fit the needed skillset. We meet goals faster and it’s more cost effective for the client.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Our reputation has been built on a solid track record of successful projects spanning several years, as well as a customer-centric approach to service delivery. Rather than a one-size-fits-all pricing structure, we customize each project based on the client’s needs and budget. And we are proud to receive many referrals and repeat business from satisfied customers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognized the challenges faced by our clients, many of whom were experiencing business losses and market pressures. We provided support by helping our clients maintain their marketing strategies and social media campaigns, enabling them to hit the ground running when businesses reopened. To support our clients during this challenging period, we chose to freeze our rate and subscription prices at 2019 levels, without raising them as we typically do annually.

Contact Info:

• Website: 24moves.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/24Moves/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelippeatt/

Image Credits
Images are screenshots of our portfolio.