Gary Sahota

Own and manage footsie101.com Instagram: @footsie101_official

Octopus Group approached me with an opportunity to join their SMT and work alongside other Publicis Groupe agencies (Leo’s, Saatchi, and Zenith) on some of their larger account wins. Having originally taken on 12 accounts (circa £1.6 million), some of which included Three Mobile, Premier Inn, SLB, Logitech, Siemens, and BT, I worked on several ABM, Brand and Demand Generation programs to drive growth and results. All while building client relationships along the way allowing for upsell opportunities. After 5 months in the role, I had a further 6 accounts added to my portfolio and my team of 5 grew to 8 overnight. Now with a portfolio of over £2.2million I lead on client strategy and strategic thinking to help my clients grow presence in their markets. While Octopus Group are still going through the transition of embedding their operations and systems with Publicis Groupe (having been acquired the previous year), I’m helping with internal processes and upskilling the client services department as well as giving a helping hand on internal training to new recruits.

Winner's of Agency of the Year 2021 (B2B Marketing) - 1/6 of the management team. Having joined a smaller agency, with a fresh new challenge and a complete focus on ABM programs for the likes of Veeam, Infosys, Oracle and Infobip, I eventually was asked to join the management team. I was brought on board to rewrite DR’s ABM Methodology and how we reposition DR within the market. Taking a hands-on approach, I also implemented a new client services structure which included new processes across departments, ways of working, onboarding new tech stacks which helped with collaboration and seamless working across all departments. Other responsibilities include driving new business within existing accounts, pitching, hiring 10 new heads within client services, creating a new ‘fun’ culture within the business, presentations (internally and externally) and managing all client services revenue. Successes to date would be growing a small £50k project with Veeam UK and turning it into a £1.3 million client, with 25 new stakeholders globally, within 13 months.

B2B Marketing GOLD and Silver Winner in 2020 for the ABM 1:1 Program for Veeam. Winner of GOLD award for Veeam, Year 2020 (DRUM Awards)

Having worked on the agency's largest account (HP) which is divided into two divisions (Print and Personal Systems). Leading the charge on the Personal System side of the business and working across EMEA with 10+ clients in five regions, strategising and focusing on their ABM programmes (which included account building, sales alignment, social selling, social media management, content syndication, analytical reporting and optimisation of all programs and campaigns). I reported directly into a client partner on financial forecasting, P&L and running a team of x1 AM and x1 AE. The role consisted of general management, looking for new business opportunities, team/people development, strategic thinking, project management, resource management, problem solving, and understanding enterprise hardware and software for consultative selling.

A short-lived journey at DG, but in my short time there, I managed to win and deliver a $200k Microsoft Education campaign within a 3-week period. The project involved full end to end strategy, print, video production, gamification, creative and planning.

Winner's of B2B Agency of the Year 2015 Worked on delivering B2B integrated brand campaigns for clients such as Cisco, VMware, Canon and Microsoft. My job responsibilities include managing the internal and external marketing collateral and content for these clients, delivering demand generation campaigns and assets within Marketo and Hubspot to a bespoke level of IT managers and C-level audiences, while also supporting with the statistical analysis and reporting of these campaigns. Other key responsibilities included identifying new sales opportunities within existing accounts by up-selling and cross-selling while managing clients on a day-to-day basis, solving their concerns and issues whenever they may have arisen. Other key elements involved were invoicing, creating print media campaigns, organising events, production of video shoots, scheduling content plans, liaising with suppliers and different internal departments to meet strict deadlines on time and to budget all while helping the client meet their agreed ROI’s.

• Implementation lead for online branded direct marketing activity within the marketing team • Delivered several multichannel marketing campaigns on website and offline • Created monthly e-mailers via CMS systems • Wrote basic content for landing pages in HTML and proof reading all marketing collateral • Liaised with printers for colour proofs to strict deadlines • Set up of internal promotional campaigns each month via CMS • Liaised with different departments including translations team and promotions team • Worked closely with designers to create DM/eDMs/landing pages and animated videos • Worked with external VIP clients on their offline campaigns • Campaign stats, Successes include 2012 Xmas Campaign which delivered £938k in deposits Additional Responsibilities as Account Manager: • Managed workload and performance for temporary and permanent resources • Planned the creative end-to-end process, worked with external design agencies until eventual sign off • Managed the fulfilment, print and postage of all offline campaigns for Betway and Bingo • Managed the relationships of several different printing and postage companies • Shopped around for competitive pricing on postage and print (Saving £30k on postage alone) • Generated new ideas for a Bingo Client to achieve maximum customer retention • Tracked all outgoing projects costs, ensuring invoices were reviewed, correct and paid on time • Set up and pulled lists via internal CMS system for welcome letters

Dissertation title – ‘What are the main determining factors in women’s decision making process when attending football matches in the UK?’