How The Marketing Production Company is turning their vision into reality

Powering growth through automation

The Marketing Production Company (The MPC) has built a reputation for delivering high-quality marketing materials since its launch in 2014. What started as a one-person operation has grown into a 10,000-square-foot facility with a team of 20, producing physical assets such as print packaging, promotional merchandise, digital and photographic print, large-format displays, and clothing.

"The business started back in 2014 after I was made redundant," explains founder Paul Marsh.  "I was familiar with this industry, and I knew I wanted to start my own business. Over time, it grew from me working alone to a team of 20 in our own facility. We are also an extension of our clients' marketing departments. It's been a journey but a very rewarding one."

“When you set up a business, you want to be doing the things that you love. And for us, that’s speaking to customers and making things happen, ” adds Emma Marsh, co-owner.

From chaos to control

While growth introduced new opportunities, it also brought complexity. To maintain their focus on delivering exceptional customer service while scaling efficiently, The MPC needed a scalable solution. 

Prior to using QuickBooks, running the businesses was chaotic, unorganised. With QuickBooks we are able to have multiple areas of our business doing functions that we don't necessarily want to be doing day in, day out. We've gone from manual to automation,” says Emma.

"As a business, we have to make sure we're doing things correctly and making sure   it's easy. Otherwise we're not going to scale," explains Paul.

"And as a business owner, you don't have to do every single thing yourself. You can have employees within the organisation that can be autonomous. But with QuickBooks we still have a bird's eye view over everything," explains Paul.

"If a supplier wants to know how they're performing with us, at the click of a button I can see our top suppliers, how much we've spent with them, and where the opportunities are," says Emma. "This allows us to have real business conversations and negotiate better deals."

"Also as business grows, you can’t keep adding more people. You have to look at the processes in place. For us it’s about how we can bring in more automation and be more streamlined. QuickBooks isn't just a standalone platform anymore for us, it's something that's fundamental to the software platform that runs this business and has helped this business to scale," Emma explains. 

Find out how QuickBooks supports business growth with scalable accounting tools here. 

Efficiency on autopilot

To scale effectively, The MPC knew they needed to simplify operations and automate key processes.

"We would not have scaled to where we are today without the automation in place," explains Emma. "And I still look at some of the things and think how I can improve this process a little bit. We couldn't do what we do without the automation that we get from QuickBooks - it’s very powerful." 

Automation has allowed The MPC to manage financial complexity and maintain agility as they grow. "We are a complex business so we try to be clever in how we use QuickBooks across different areas of our business," explains Paul.

"We also adopted payroll after about four years, and that was a game-changer for us to have that control," explains Emma. "It's made the process smoother and more accurate."

By automating key processes, The MPC has freed up valuable time and resources, allowing the team to focus on strategic growth and customer service. "We’ve brought APIs into QuickBooks to automate things like invoicing from our estimating systems. This is saving us a huge amount of work," says Emma.

The insight from their accountant, combined with QuickBooks’ data and automation, gives The MPC the tools and confidence to take control of their future.

"When we ran through our accounts review this year, our accountant noticed that I had to click something in payroll to be able to get a new rebate. Instantly we saved a few thousand pounds," says Emma. "Things like this help guide us along the way, because there's so much you need to keep an eye on and be aware of."

Accountants can be vital for a growing business. Find an accountant with QuickBooks’ directory here. 

Building for the future

The MPC's growth has been impressive, but the team remains committed to sustainable, long-term success.

"We're cautious about growing too quickly, but we know we're on the tip of some explosion at some point. The goal is to carry on doing what we're doing, focusing on customer success and saying yes to making things happen," Paul notes.

The long-term vision also matters into their advice for other businesses: Stay on top of technology.

"The market's changing. Like all industries are changing. There's pressure all over the place and costs are rising. We see so many businesses fail because they are not adopting technology or they're not innovating. The advice would be just rip off the Band-Aid and give it a go," says Emma.

Why QuickBooks?

When asked if they'd recommend QuickBooks to other business owners, Paul notes: "It's easy to use, intuitive, and can help you make informed business decisions backed by real data."

And if QuickBooks were a celebrity? "Stephen Hawking," the founder laughs. "It's intelligent and always has the answers."

Powering Your Possible

At Intuit QuickBooks, we believe that businesses like the Marketing Production Company deserve more than just tools - they deserve the confidence and control to dream big and make it happen. The Power Your Possible campaign is about giving businesses the solutions that can drive their growth at speed with the insight needed to take control of their future.

Read the rest in our series:

Utter Waffle: From food truck to flourishing business

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