When Cerri McDonald got told she was being made redundant from her job in oil and gas there wasn’t the usual tears.
The 42-year-old had grown “disillusioned” with her job and already knew she was ready for a new challenge.
She felt a sense of relief and just a few days later jetted off to Marbella with husband Graeme to celebrate his 40th birthday.
It was while lying poolside at their villa the vision for marketing firm Prospect 13 was born.
When she got home the business turned in to a reality with her working from her kitchen table.
The mum-of-two said: “I was really unhappy in my job.
“When I got hauled into the office and told I was being made redundant there were no tears because I knew what I was going to do.
“I’d written a business plan and was away to start my business.
“Three days later I lay at the poolside at a villa in Marbella planning out meetings and contacting my whole network.
“I literally started the business from a sunbed in Marbella.”
Soul searching for business ideas
Cerri, mum to 17-year-old Becky and 14-year-old Katy, was head of marketing and communications at ICR Integrity for 16 months before losing her job.
Her background in the marketing sector spans more than 20 years.
Cerri said: “For maybe two years before losing my job I was feeling disillusioned with the oil and gas sector.
“Tired of working in large corporate environments, I knew I needed to do something else but what that would be I had no idea.
“I was soul-searching for quite a while. I had a couple of different ideas, looked at them, and wrote them off quite quickly.
“It was Graeme who told me to stick to what I’m good at, which was marketing, but just maybe not in oil and gas anymore.
“I looked at gaps in the market from an agency consultancy perspective in Aberdeen and how I would set it up.
“I did heaps of research, wrote a business plan and it was a bit of therapy.”
Cerri McDonald moved from kitchen table to the new Prospect 13 office in three months
Cerri got the business running and for the first two months worked from her kitchen table.
She said: “We got home from Marbella and I was at Business Gateway the next day.
“They were a massive help and I then started working from my kitchen table.
“I bought myself a new laptop and that was literally the only thing I invested in.
“I sat at the table for the first two months. But I was hardly there as I was out meeting everyone I knew.
“Before I knew it, that was it.”
Three months later Cerri had started hiring staff and moved into the James Gregory Centre in Bridge of Don’s Aberdeen Innovation Park.
The former Bridge of Don Academy pupil said: “It’s pretty scary to think about not getting a job when you’ve been made redundant.
“My husband said to give myself three months to make it happen.
“By December I was hiring people and had an office.”
Continued expansion for Prospect 13
The business continued to flourish and by the time everyone returned to office working following lockdown Cerri knew it was time for a bigger office.
She said: “Lockdown happened and during 2020 we were all working from home.
“We grew massively. When it was time to come back to the office we knew we had to move.”
“The growth was phenomenal during the two pandemic years.
“I think it’s because everyone knew they had to get their communication spot on.
“Lockdown was bad for a lot of businesses but it was positive for some and marketing was one of them.”
Two years ago Cerri and the team moved to a larger, more modern office suite in the Enterprise Centre at Aberdeen Energy Park.
Client growth and retention
Prospect 13 currently has 25 clients on its books across the oil and gas, education, technology, IT, professional services, automotive, financial and commercial property sectors.
Cerri said: “I had said I fell out of love with oil and gas but a big percentage of our clients are oil and gas.
“But there’s one fundamental difference. I pick who they are.
“We tend to stick to the small businesses for a reason and it’s because we’d rather work with owner-manager businesses where there’s more creative licence and we can do what we want with them.
“We don’t have a corporate team at the other side of the world dictating how we do the marketing.”
Cerri prides herself on a good relationship with clients.
She said: “Our biggest success is client retention. We’ve got clients on the book that have been with me since invoice number one.
“They haven’t left us and that’s a really good feeling. I’m really proud of that and we are clearly doing something right.
“A lot of our growth has also come from referrals from those companies.”
Award-winning business
For the past two years Cerri has had Robert Gordon University students carry out their placement at the agency.
And due to their hard work she has offered them both jobs at the end of their three-month stint.
Sarah Kelly and Annie Buchan, who both studied digital marketing, are now employees of the firm.
In April Sarah and the Prospect 13 team picked up the Northern Star business award for student placement.
Cerri said: “The growth for me is not about figures in the bank. It’s about the impact we are having on our clients but also the community.
“Prospect 13 has grown in lots of different ways. But, yes, there is growth in numbers.
“This year we’ve been getting a lot of our foundations back into place. Like a lot of businesses, we are delivering marketing support for clients but we are the last to market ourselves.
“Things like our branding and our website needs to be freshened up. I’ve been focusing our energy on that growth areas.”
Important family time
Outwith work, Cerri enjoys spending time with her family and dachshund Ness.
She said: “Family is massive and I’ve never worked as hard as I have the past five years.
“I’ve always been a grafter. I’ve always gone the extra mile with my job and always been the wife that comes home and can’t stop speaking about her job.
“What the last five years has made me do is, when I take the time out it is very family-focused. I value that time so much.
“We always make sure we are doing something we like together.
“We’re massive foodies and love going out to restaurants and entertaining people where we’ll all cook.
“Also walking with Ness.
“Graeme has been a phenomenal support and a brilliant listener.”
A ‘scary and nervous time’
Reflecting back on starting up her business, Cerri, who celebrated the anniversary with a party for staff, clients and Prospect 13 supporters, said: “It was a scary time and I was terrified.
“I was nervous about everything.
“I wanted to make sure we were different from other agencies with our model and how we operated.
“We are different. We are the only agency that I know of that works the way we do and that was attractive to businesses and we built momentum quickly.”
