Jo Shaer

Managing Director

After working in the City for 12 years, rising to personal assistant to the MD (Private Client section) of a large merchant bank, I turned my back on it all to become a stay at home Mum.

For the next 18 years, I raised two happy, healthy kids.

Once my daughter and son were older, I became a part-time lollipop lady so I could still be around in the school holidays.

I also studied karate with them, earning my black belt at the grand old age of 46.

When the kids were at school or asleep, I was a blogger and internet marketer. I regularly tuned in at 2am to webinars from the US to learn the latest tips. And later attended real-life seminars here in the UK.

Keeping up with all the latest ways to attract website visitors, generate leads and close customers is a crucial part of my own CPD. It’s a habit that persists to this very day.

The business owners that I helped to cross the road and the karateka who threw me around on the mat started complaining to me about condescending web designers and pushy online directory salesmen.

I grabbed the opportunity to use my growing online skills and, in 2010, Lollipop Local Ltd was born.

At first I did both jobs part-time. But it became clear that there was a real need for simple, honest online marketing results.

In 2013, Jon joined the Company full time. And I finally hung up my lollipop stick in 2015.

I met Jon through karate. He has a PhD in sports science and is an amazing teacher but struggled to get students to his classes. I introduced him to local SEO and content marketing. He soon realised that he had skills which would be better used working with businesses.

He provided the data, spreadsheets and analysis to back up the ongoing success of my content creation.

Our first clients were students from Jon’s classes. Some notable success stories increasing exports for two manufacturing companies followed.

Our first Fire and Security customer

A Kent-based karateka asked us to help with the security company he worked for as sales director – our first monthly retainer. Their previous website had produced zero enquiries.

But they got their first order for £20k within 2 weeks of our new site going live and the leads just kept on coming in after that.

In football terms, we crossed them. And Dave knocked them in 🙂

A few years later, the owner sold the business to a venture capital group and retired.

It was clear that Fire and Security was a niche where our lead generation skills could produce some great results.

Improving Sales For Fire and Security

But there is more to Lollipop than just lead generation. It’s all a bit pointless if a company receives lots of enquiries but cannot turn them into customers.

Show. Me. The. Money

What would you do if you saw evidence that your ‘sales’ team are not answering the phone promptly? Or responding to email enquiries the same day?

You can tell them until you are blue in the face but sometimes your admin people just don’t like using the telephone. Or are not organised enough to manage enquiries. They need some training.

In 2018, we spent over 20% of our annual revenue on training. This included working with two coaches from the US. An experienced sales veteran who trained the first HubSpot sales teams. And a well known and enduring online marketing guru who learned his craft from some marketing legends.

From there, we were able to develop a dedicated sales program for Fire and Security personnel.

It’s already resulted in improvements to enquiry management and conversion at a couple of Fire and Security companies.

Are you ready to take your Fire and/or Security business to the next level?

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