Sharon Latour

Business: Marketing Bee

Age: 25

State: Victoria

Embracing the concept of the bee hive, Sharon Latour has created Marketing Bee, a firm that delivers marketing services for small to medium size businesses.

Since starting up about 16 months ago, she’s now employing a team of seven people, a couple part-time and around eight on a project by project basis.

She says she came to start the business when, while working for GM Holden as a customer relations manager, a friend asked her to help start her cosmetics business.

“I was surprised by how many people you go to when you first start – designer, web designer, social media person etc,” she says.

“The marketing process was disjointed, and often purposeless and we were left very confused most of the time. I thought that I’d create an agency with absolute diligence, the latest methods and with a cool name to make the whole process seamless.”

Latour says demand is now exceeding supply and “I can’t hire fast enough”.

She says Marketing Bee takes businesses from where they are to where they want to be, offering services such as branding, marketing, social media, online presence and advertising.

“Everything we create has a business purpose behind it and has to grow the business we work with. Our focus is on long term relationships. We leave them buzzing … pun intended.”

Latour says she hopes to expand the business into another city in the next two to three years and make a mark on small to medium businesses by making them understand marketing is not a luxury, but “what pumps blood into a business”.

She says funding was one of the hardest things about starting up her business, but urges fellow young entrepreneurs to “push through”.

“Starting a business will take every inch of energy you have and there will be sweat, tears and doubts but Rome wasn’t built in a day – the same applies to your business.”