Running a small business often means juggling hiring, marketing, enquiries, and day-to-day operations, all at the same time. These are the areas where things most often become inconsistent, time-consuming, or difficult to manage.
Coast to Country supports businesses across the South West by helping them improve how they attract people, manage enquiries, and reduce workload using practical recruitment support and simple AI systems.
What we help with
We focus on the areas where businesses typically lose time and momentum:
- Attracting the right candidates through clear job adverts and recruitment marketing
- Managing applications and identifying suitable applicants
- Handling enquiries and improving response times
- Creating consistent marketing content
- Reducing repetitive admin using AI systems and automations
A practical approach
Our approach is straightforward. Identify where time is being lost, where communication is breaking down, and where simple systems can improve efficiency.
This may include:
- Improving how roles are presented and advertised
- Supporting CV screening and early-stage recruitment
- Setting up AI tools to handle common enquiries
- Creating tailored systems, including custom GPTs, to support marketing and content creation
The aim is always the same, to help your business run more efficiently, attract the right people, and reduce workload without unnecessary complexity.
Using AI in a practical way
AI is not about replacing people, it’s about supporting how your business operates day to day.
We use AI to:
- Reduce time spent on repetitive tasks
- Improve consistency in marketing and communication
- Support enquiry handling and internal processes
Every system is designed to be simple, practical, and tailored to your business, with you remaining in full control.
Who we work with
We work with small and medium-sized businesses across Devon and the South West who want to improve efficiency without immediately increasing headcount.
Whether you need support with hiring, marketing, or reducing day-to-day workload, we help you put the right systems in place so your business runs more smoothly.
Meet the dedicated experts who bring creativity and results to Coast to Country SW.
Samantha Backstrom
Recruitment and AI Support Specialist
I bring over 20 years of experience across recruitment marketing, sales, and business support, helping organisations attract the right candidates and manage hiring more effectively.
Alongside my recruitment background, I’ve recently completed training in AI for workplace productivity and continue to invest in ongoing learning to stay up to date with the latest tools and developments. This allows me to support businesses not only with hiring, but also with practical AI systems that can improve marketing, streamline processes, and reduce day-to-day workload.
My background includes recruitment advertising, job campaign management, and candidate pre screening. I work with businesses that want their recruitment handled professionally, but without the cost or complexity of a traditional recruitment agency.
I take a practical, organised approach to everything I do, making sure roles are clearly presented, promoted in the right places, and supported by simple systems that help you focus your time on the most important parts of running your business.
AI Tools
Harnessing the Power of AI
At Coast to Country SW, we use AI as a tool, not a replacement for experience.
By combining practical business and recruitment experience with the right AI tools, we help streamline the areas that take up the most time, from hiring and marketing to enquiries and admin.
We use tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI (including Gemini and NotebookLM), Perplexity, and automation platforms like Zapier to build simple workflows and tailored systems. This can include custom GPTs, Gems, content creation support, enquiry handling, and early-stage recruitment tasks such as job adverts and CV screening.
Where appropriate, we also use tools like Storm to support research and content development, helping ensure your marketing and communication is relevant and well-informed.
Every system is designed to reduce repetitive work, improve consistency, and support your day-to-day operations, while keeping everything practical and easy to use.
All outputs are reviewed and refined with human judgement, ensuring accuracy, quality, and a professional standard at every stage.
Working with Sam at Coast to Country made a noticeable difference to how we approach both recruitment and marketing. We’d been handling everything internally, which was time-consuming and often led to inconsistent results.
On the recruitment side, the biggest impact was the quality of candidates we ended up speaking to. The job advert was clearer and more targeted, and having CVs properly screened and pre-screen calls handled meant we only spent time on candidates who were actually a good fit.
On the marketing side, Sam also helped us implement AI systems across Get Stoked, Therabody SA, and Drinkmate, which significantly reduced the time spent creating weekly social media content while improving consistency and quality.
Overall, it has saved us many hours each week and made both our hiring and marketing feel far more structured and professional. I’d recommend it to any growing business that needs support but doesn’t want the cost or complexity of traditional agencies.
Andrew
Director Get Stoked