How James Marsden had to rely on instincts to get Impulse Decisions through the pandemic

Impulse Decisions and its founder James Marsden have faced a steep learning curve over the past couple of years

The Harrogate-based events company, founded in 2010, hadn’t even faced a financial crisis yet alone a global pandemic.

“We work within the charity sector so we supply a lot of charity auctions throughout the country and we also supply corporate hospitality solutions to private individuals, corporate companies and friends and families,” says Mr Marsden.

He set the business up in 2010 having worked at a company in Manchester doing a similar thing.

Mr Marsden said: “I knew I could make a difference. I knew what the service levels were like in the market and I knew with how I went about things, how people I worked closely with went about things, that we could make a difference within the sector, be more transparent with what we do and increase service levels.”

He added: “It started out specifically targeting charity auctions and how we can help charities boost their fundraising, which is obviously the big selling point for us and that is what we do.

“From there, over the last ten, 12 years it has just developed with us doing more corporate hospitality.”

The biggest challenges in the initial days was a limited network and access to finance, according to Mr Marsden.

“I never had a black book of contacts per se,” he said. “I had to go out myself and find those contacts and deliver what we said we would deliver.

“Another challenge would be we didn’t have an unlimited amount of money. We weren’t backed by private equity.

“We didn’t have wealthy investors so obviously we were very cost conscious – we still are for obvious reasons.”

Despite this, the firm was going from “strength to strength” and within five years it had a turnover of £2m and in ten years it reached £5m. Then came a “big dip with Covid”.

It was a “very tough” period for Mr Marsden and the business couldn’t have got through it without some clients sticking with it and various bits of support such as the furlough scheme.

Last year, Impulse also secured backing to the tune of £200,000 from NPIF – Mercia Debt Finance.

Mr Marsden said: “We worked our way through it and thankfully the very generous clients that we have stuck by us. They put their trust in us and we made it through that moment.

“But very much like all events and hospitality businesses it’s been incredibly tough. We had to adapt.”

It launched drive-in cinema evenings and a ‘Shop Local’ campaign to keep the brand in people’s minds when events were put on hold.

The greatest lesson Mr Marsden took from the whole period was to “trust the process”.

He added: “The good times will come back. You’ve just got to do what you have always done. I don’t think anyone got everything perfect. It was a learning experience for everybody.

“No matter who you are, whatever industry you are in, everybody will have learnt something new and I think you’ve got to be open-minded to that.

“I’d never taken a business through a pandemic before or even through a financial crash so for me it was a really big learning curve.

“We didn’t get everything 100 per cent right but seeing the feedback we’ve had from clients, we are delighted with what we did.”

Pre-pandemic the business had 15 staff, this figure reduced to seven but is now back up to 15 and is set to reach 18 over the next few months.

It was the first time ever that Mr Marsden was put in a position where he had to lay off staff in what was “the worst moment” of his career.

“Yes, it’s business but it was just a horrible scenario,” he says. “Thankfully the team understood. We were backed into the corner based on what was going on in the world but we did everything we could to keep those guys on board.”

However, as things picked up some of those that were let go have since returned to the business.

The business has put a focus on the mental health of its staff, which Mr Marsden believes is “incredibly important”. He added: “We’re trying to do more and more stuff around that.”

Impulse hosts a personal trainer once a week to work with its team and also gives staff time off for personal development.

“We encourage everyone in the team to join that session just to have some time away from the computers while also keeping fit,” he said. “We all know the benefit of that.”

Mr Marsden added: “You need your team to be firing on all cylinders so they need to be happy.

“They spend most of their time within the workplace so it’s essential nowadays that we create these opportunities for our team.”

Live events are beginning to return although the Omicron outbreak towards the tail end of last year made the first two months of 2022 difficult.

“When people are planning events, they are pre-planning months in advance,” Mr Marsden said. “If they have something booked for January and February and that news broke at the end of November, they would be very nervous.”

He added: “From an events perspective, the rest of the year is looking very strong indeed.”

Looking further ahead, Mr Marsden wants the business to “keep growing” and create opportunities for its team members.

“We’re a relatively young team so seeing those individuals grow is a big thing for me,” he says.

Mr Marsden added: “We want to double our turnover in the next five years, which is quite ambitious.

“We’ve got a great team here that we can get there with.”

The entrepreneur has had the privilege of working on many events but seeing the business make a difference is a highlight for him.

With the pandemic now seemingly behind the events industry, Impulse Decisions hopes more people will be making impulse decisions at auctions and supporting worthy causes.

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James Mitchinson