Aycliffe Today Business AT Business Issue 37 | Page 5

The magazine for Aycliffe Business Park | 5
/NEWS
BUSINESS
BRIEFS
GROWTH AFTER EMCON
Web firm ahead of the game
as sales set to top £1m
A
fast-growing web design agency plans
to expand and take on more staff with
sales set to hit £1m for the first time.
Webahead Internet was launched by digital
entrepreneur Dale Jefferies, who’s from
Newton Aycliffe, with just five staff six years
ago.
After achieving a first-year turnover of
£140,000, the firm now employs 22 people –
made up of a sales team, administration staff,
graphic designers and web developers – and
boasts a client base of 5,000 customers
across the UK.
Darlington-based Webahead – which is
ranked third in the UK from 3,500 design
agencies registered with the UK Web Design
Association (UKWDA) – now expects sales
in its current year, ending March 2019, to
surpass the £1m mark.
And former Woodham Academy student
Jefferies is eying further expansion with
more staff and office space at its Faverdale
premises in Darlington.
“We started the company with five of
us and not a penny in the bank and not
one client on our books,” says 33-year-old
Jefferies, who started his sales career more
than 14 years ago.
“By the end of our first day we had seven
customers, and we’ve grown from there. We
now have 5,000 clients across Great Britain
and Northern Ireland and they literally range
from one-man-bands up to large public and
private organisations, including schools,
colleges and charities.
“There are some web companies out there
who won’t consider you unless you have
£3-4,000 to spend. We’re not bothered about
that, we don’t turn away our bread-and-butter,
which is tradesmen.
“We cater for everyone. We have
customers who spend £150 a year with
us, to those bigger clients spending up to
£30,000.
“The big sales do come, and they come
quite regularly, but the more customers you
have, the more word-of-mouth you get. Many
of our clients will start off small and grow, so
if we look after them and treat them properly
from the beginning they’ll stay with us.”
Jefferies says he tried a number of jobs
before eventually finding his “forte” in sales
and then setting up his own agency.
“I tried being a postman, which didn’t work
out, then various office and factory jobs,” he
says.
“But I was given an opportunity to work in
sales. I really found my forte and eventually
got into media sales, selling websites, and
it has gone from there. I now have 14 years’
experience in media sales.”
Jefferies says it wasn’t all plain-sailing
when he initially set up the company, but he
has plans to grow the business further.
“It was the most stressful thing I’ve ever
done,” he says. “In the early years I was in at
8am and not leaving for home until 9 at night.
“And I had to wear many hats. I had to
be a salesperson, a receptionist, I had to
process all the sales, all the artwork packs for
customers. It was a massive work-load.
“I was used to a decent wage by this point
and I had to halve my income to make it
work, so it wasn’t easy in the early days.
“But it eventually paid off. We now have
managers for every department and we
have a really strong team, with everyone
performing well.
“I pride myself on people management – I
wouldn’t ask someone to do something I
wouldn’t be comfortable doing myself, and I
always speak to people in the way I expect to
be spoken to. As a result we have excellent
retention rates among both staff as well as
our customer base.
“We’re now aiming to grow and expand
into more office space and create more
managerial roles for our staff.”
Find out more about Webahead Internet
at webaheadinternetltd.co.uk
Companies from across County
Durham who exhibited at EMCON for
the very first time are putting in place
plans to grow.
Eighteen new or growing SMEs
signed up to participate in this
year’s Incubator Zone, which was a
key element of EMCON 2018 and
is ERDF-funded and delivered by
Business Durham’s Durham Business
Opportunities Programme (DBOP).
This year, the exhibitors included
Aycliffe firms Accurate Systems
Labelling, Newton Aycliffe Workwear
Supplies, Pixel Media and Greystone
Legal.
COUNCIL SIGNS CHARTER
Durham County Council has signed
the Dying to Work charter as part
of the TUC’s campaign for greater
employment security for terminally ill
workers.
The Dying to Work campaign calls
for terminal conditions to be made
a ‘protected characteristic’, ensuring
that employees battling terminal
conditions will be supported,
protected and guided throughout their
employment, following a terminal
diagnosis.
In signing the charter, Durham
County Council has confirmed that it
recognises that safe and reasonable
work can help maintain dignity.
SAINTS PROGRAMME
LAUNCHED
Innovative businesses in the North
East are at the forefront of a new
programme to capitalise on insightful
data from satellites and Earth-
based sensors and use it to tackle
major problems facing businesses,
governments and communities.
SAINTS – Situational Awareness
Information National Technology
Service – will bring together experts
from business, universities and the
public sector who will use artificial
intelligence to combine travel,
business and satellite data to come
up with ways to solve some of the
country’s most pressing challenges –
from traffic congestion to UK border
security issues.
SAINTS has been launched by the
North East Satellite Applications
Centre of Excellence, which is
operated by Business Durham.