We talked to Lovetto Nazareth, COO at Prism about digital marketing and he had the following to say about it:-
First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?
Lovetto Nazareth: 2019 was one of the most difficult years for Prism as we had more than 12 clients default on payments of more than 1.5 million, but we persevered and funded the company with our own money and emptied our savings account. Our staff were informed that we would have to tighten our belts in 2020 and keep costs low, so we moved into a smaller office and bootstrapped hard. But then 2020 happened, and coronavirus hit, and since then our business has grown over 185%
The thing is during the corona situation, everything went online, and our e-commerce side of the business exploded. We have built over 50 e-commerce mobile apps and websites in the last 8 months, and our orderbooks for 2021 is already full !! While other companies offered 3 and 4-month free service to their clients, we are literally saying no to clients with ridiculous budgets. Our brand is very strong, and our clients know that if they work with Prism, they will be getting the best of the best, and hence a lot of companies work with us seamlessly, and other agencies refer their digital marketing business to us.
Tell us about you, your career, how you joined Prism.
Lovetto Nazareth: I was working in the UK and Singapore in early 2000, and my ex-company opened an office in UAE to grow with the boom, so I relocated to UAE in 2003 and started up the company there. I grew my ex-company from 2 people to 15 people till 2006 and then left to venture out on my own.
Prism Digital was the digital arm of the Prism Group which own prism events and prism advertising, and we grew the business organically from scratch. In 2009 when the crash happened, we also crashed along with bad debts of over 20 million with it, so for 5 years I literally ran the company from my own house building up the business slowly and steadily. Now we were 36 men strong and serving 135 clients in 6 countries, and we are doing better than we have ever done before.
How does Prism innovate?
Lovetto Nazareth: Prism is on the cutting edge of innovations. We are one of the first company to be a licensed provider of Umbraco website solutions, as well as Gold partner for Google and Facebook. We create mobile apps in flutter and swift, which is the best hybrid versions of native mobile apps which take 1/2 the time to create and have 5X times the performance of other native apps. Our e-commerce apps are well known in the market, and we have scaled businesses from 1 million to 100 million USD in less than 4 years.
How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?
Lovetto Nazareth: As I said before we are thriving because we provide high-end e-commerce and digital marketing services which everybody requires.
Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?
Lovetto Nazareth: We had to make difficult choices in reducing costs but what we have learned that your staff and employees are either your biggest asset or your biggest liability and if you have an amazing team supporting you are blessed, and success will come your way…but you also have to reciprocate the gesture and help them grow and support them financially for them to perform well!!
How do you deal with stress and anxiety?
Lovetto Nazareth: I run 6 km each day, meditate daily and swim as well.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Lovetto Nazareth: We will rule the e-commerce game by the 3 rules we follow:
1. Always be honest in your dealings: don’t cheat anybody.
2. Always provide the best quality to your clients.
3. The client is always your first priority.
Your final thoughts?
Lovetto Nazareth: If you want to grow: Innovate.
If you want to innovate: Learn constantly.
If you want to learn: Keep an open mind.
Your mind is your greatest weapon and biggest asset…feed it…grow it.
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