Agency Collective Tales

We were joined by Anthony Chapman and Paul Crump, founders of Fellow Studio, who talked us through how they started Fellow after leaving their old job, knowing that they could do it better. Find out about their growth, their culture and how they, as creatives grapple with sales!

In the finale of this season of The Agency Collective Tales, Ellie speak to Tom Smith, Founder of Complete Online. They chatted about moving from using freelancers to permanent staff, how self enrichment and personal goals are just as important as professional ones and making the move to working abroad.

This month, Ellie spoke to Charles Sladdin, founder and MD of Purple Banana. We talked about finding the balance between carving a niche that makes you unique but making sure that it's one that you love, why B Corps are the future of business and why stepping back from the day to day can be so difficult.

This month Ellie talks to Joe Perkins, Owner & MD of Chaptr. They discuss how Chaptr began, the benefits and downsides of working with (and developing) interns, how and why they chose their niche and what's next in 2023!

Ellie spoke to Ben Thomson about his journey, starting from pioneering cloud-based printing solutions to pivoting from a product based company into his current serviced based company, Full Metal Software.

Zara Deegan, founder of EXT MKTG talks all about going from working in house at agencies across the globe to going it alone and why she wants to work with other mums, the importance of the work / life balance, why less is often more and some of the exciting plans for EXT MKTG in 2023 and beyond!

Stewart talks about how he went from creating online forums for fun as a teenager to taking this specialism into a successful agency working with medium / large scale media clients, via a degree in Human and Mammalian physiology! He also shares how his adulthood diagnosis has shaped the way Powered by Coffee is run so that it compliments neurodiversity, rather than using a cookie cutter business model, as well as the agency's exciting future projects.

In this episode of the Agency Collective Tales, Ellie spoke to Rea Averill, founder and Managing Director of Agency A about making the choice to start out on her own, much earlier than she anticipated and using the skills she picked from one industry brought to a standstill by the pandemic to pivot into a different one altogther. Rea started Agency A in 2022, a social media savvy team who build online communities, creatively.

In this episode of the Agency Collective Tales, Ellie spoke to Pete Heslop, founder and Managing Director of Steadfast Collective about leaving the agency he helped to co-found to start a new agency rooted in his passion for digital products, being able to holiday & live the life he wants and how his love of all things community shaped Steadfast Collective. Pete Heslop is Managing Director at Steadfast Collective, his passion is working with smart creatives to craft digital applications that bring people together.

In this episode of the Agency Collective Tales, Ellie spoke to Tony Hallett, founder of Collective Content about founding an agency following on from a successful career in journalism, his policy of openness, honesty and upfront information about staff wages and about keeping the balance between growth and retaining your ethos. After working for a number of years in tech journalism, following the fallout from the 2008 crash, Tony started Collective Content and used the wealth of relationships he had formed over the years to establish and grow it into a thriving business.

00:00:00:12 - 00:00:10:10IntroWelcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale, our podcast,  where we talk to our brilliant agency owners about all things agency  life.00:00:11:02 - 00:00:16:00EllieI am joined today by Harry Fielder from Umi Digital, thank you so  much for being on the podcast, Harry.00:00:16:19 - 00:00:17:17HarryLovely to be here.00:00:17:23 - 00:00:21:11EllieYou were about to tell me, Umi Digital, where that came from.00:00:21:21 - 00:00:53:22HarryYeah. So it's an untypical origin. So Umi actually started its life  as a hotel company, so Umi Hotels predated Umi Digital. So my  business partner Steve Lowy founded Umi Hotels back in 2007. There  was one in Brighton, one in Moscow and one in London. The one in  Moscow was a franchise set up. Interesting experience. And Umi  Digital was actually formed out of the internal marketing department  breaking away and becoming its own thing back in 2007 through 2010.00:00:53:23 - 00:01:09:10HarryThe hotel itself built up a really good flow of direct bookings,  trying to pull bookings away from the online travel agents because  obviously they charge so much commission: It's 20% commission  through online travel agents. So the goal for hotels is really to  just drive their own business and there was a business in itself.00:01:09:17 - 00:01:13:01EllieThey'd already laid the groundwork and then went off and started to  find clients.00:01:13:02 - 00:01:35:13HarryExactly. My first piece of work with the business was actually with  the central merged hotel and marketing setup. I then went back to  university, by which time when I came back, it had split off and  that's when I joined Steve as a co-founder and we ended up growing  the business as it is today. He then dipped out as a Day-To-Day  operational member of the team, sort of maybe in 2017 or so to run  an educational travel business, and we've grown it from there.00:01:35:14 - 00:01:41:13HarryIt's nice because when you're in a niche, it's very compelling to be  able to say you were once a client. You were once -00:01:41:14 - 00:01:42:13EllieRight in the heart of it!00:01:42:13 - 00:01:59:21HarryYeah, absolutely. And in all the methodologies and the processes and  everything that we have today actually stems from being a hotel  company and we can really track back what the needs were. There's a  few members of the team that overlapped, when Umi Hotels were still  involved, so we still have some company memory of that. Always  remained at the heart of what we do.00:02:00:04 - 00:02:03:20EllieSo talk to me about the last two years. How has that affected the  agency?00:02:04:05 - 00:02:31:22HarryMarch 2020, our revenue dropped 60% within a week. The split of our  services, I'd say it's probably 60% recurring marketing support,  advertising support, creative on those monthly retainers with 40%  being design and build and project based stuff. The project based  stuff a lot of it was put on ice. Just because we deal with  exclusively in hospitality and travel sector they literally shut up  shop overnight almost or if they didn't shut up shop overnight they  didn't have the confidence in which to base new investments in new  projects.00:02:31:22 - 00:02:48:19HarrySo we naturally had to keep things online. So there was an element  of basic income throughout that, but certainly not enough to feed  all the mouths and we had to use furlough a lot. The most painful  thing was that we have a relatively young team and everyone had been  used to a lot of growth. Over the last five years, we've been  doubling year on year since 2016 really.00:02:48:19 - 00:03:01:11HarrySo I think for people to get their heads around not making progress  was a really tough mental thing. You know, particularly for me, I'd  only really known growth but actually success in itself was just  staying alive and staying afloat.00:03:01:23 - 00:03:04:06EllieHow did that affect you as an agency owner?00:03:04:07 - 00:03:22:11HarryI've really torn because there's this feeling of wanting to protect  everyone. At the time we had a head count of about eight or nine.  That feeling of not wanting to panic anyone and being say, "Oh,  it'll be fine!" just because that's what you want to say. They've  got their mortgages they've got their lives, right? And then you're  split between being incredibly transparent and saying, "Right, this  is the reality of the situation.00:03:22:11 - 00:03:43:01HarryI don't know if we're going to make it out of it." There were times  when I gave it a far higher probability of it not working out than  working out. So it was really tough to try and strike that balance  of not creating alarm or panic unduly, but also respecting people's  intelligence that clearly there's something at play here and clearly  there is something not right and it is bad.00:03:43:01 - 00:03:46:21HarryThat was probably the toughest thing of understanding how to  communicate in a crisis.00:03:47:03 - 00:03:55:22EllieYeah, I guess you never had to learn that lesson before, right? Did  you just follow instinct or did you seek advice on it? Did you speak  to other agency owners about how they were managing it?00:03:56:03 - 00:04:13:22HarryI did have some advice. It was probably more given to me than me  actively seeking it out, which I think has changed my approach to  seeking advice. Actually, in the last few years, as well, because it  made me realise just how valuable an external opinion is. Maybe that  slight arrogance moving away when you realise you can't control  anything.00:04:13:22 - 00:04:27:06HarryYes, it was more about that pushed me towards the 'Just be very  transparent." You don't have to go into all the details of the  numbers, but show them the basic overview of where we're at, how  much it costs to keep the lights on. This is where we're at from a  cash point of view. This is the money coming in.00:04:27:19 - 00:04:46:04HarryHere's a best case scenario, here's a median case scenario, here's a  worst case scenario, and this is how we can all pull together to  make this thing work. That in itself, transitioned my thinking away  from "I'm the only one that can solve this problem" to "Actually we  can collectively solve this problem", which, irrespective of the  pandemic, was another really important lesson as well.00:04:46:04 - 00:05:10:17HarryBecause at the size of eight people, very director-led sales, pretty  much all revenue goes through me. I have a hand on a lot of the  projects not delivering them necessarily, not account managing them  per se, but I have a relationship with most people and I think it  told me to let go a little bit and realise that you can't control  everything all the time and the sooner you can trust people and  share the responsibility of success, then it is a weight off your  heart and your head.00:05:11:04 - 00:05:12:19EllieYeah, definitely easier said than done though, hey?00:05:13:04 - 00:05:15:14HarryOh, massively, but it was quite a liberating experience.00:05:15:16 - 00:05:20:01EllieAbsolutely. So did you just have to do it bit by bit? This task,  this project.00:05:20:17 - 00:05:38:17HarryInitially it was: "Right. I need you to all find areas that we can  save some money. What tools are we paying for that we're not using?  How much are we chucking down the drain on random marketing bits and  bobs? All these tools that we've subscribed to, that weren't really  that important." We managed to find so many savings around servers  just because traffic was so much lower.00:05:38:17 - 00:05:55:21HarryWe could. The requirement of us having all these advanced tools was  just so much lower because business operationally had become a lot  slower. So that was the first thing. The second thing was getting  people buying into the whole furlough thing. Those furlough  conversations to me, because I've never had to let anyone go before  Almost felt like I was letting someone go00:05:55:21 - 00:05:56:08EllieI bet.00:05:56:17 - 00:06:06:22HarryAnd you look back on it and you think from an HR perspective, that's  probably the easiest thing you're ever going to do. Tell someone  that you can go and earn a good chunk of money by not doing  anything. At the time, it was just so hard.00:06:06:22 - 00:06:22:05EllieBut nobody knew what it meant though, did they? And I guess nobody  knew two years later, we'd still be in all sorts of mayhem because  of it. And I guess to be told you were going on furlough two years  ago, it was the unknown, wasn't it? Is this the first step to me  losing my job? What's going to happen?00:06:22:05 - 00:06:38:24HarryExactly! And why some people were furloughed and not others? And  then that comparison of going, why am I less important? So when you  look back on it, yes, it was a wonderful scheme and the scheme  itself made sure that we could continue operating and these people  could continue their jobs. So for us, it did exactly what it was  designed to do, given the industry we're in and everything.00:06:39:02 - 00:06:39:18HarryYeah, it was tough.00:06:40:07 - 00:06:46:16EllieEspecially then. I guess another HR perspective is dealing with the  staff that are left behind to do all of the work.00:06:47:00 - 00:07:05:10HarryThere was left to do. But it was more panic messaging. Every client  that we were speaking to, it was never a nice conversation to have.  Even if the relationship between us and them was fine, all their  communication was out of panic and they weren't having a fun time of  it at all. So trying to support them through that panic and that  distress was also quite draining.00:07:05:10 - 00:07:34:15HarryYou're never celebrating big wins, and certainly in the agency  world, you latch onto your client's successes. If they win an award.  It's fantastic because you've had a part in that. If they have an  amazing year and you helped support them to that, you feel really  good about it. So deriving a sense of value in what you're doing,  both as an owner and manager and everything of it my sense of self  satisfaction in work is completely linked to the success of the  business, but for the staff as well, their sense of value is  delivering cool stuff for clients and clients being really happy and  grateful and seeing the results of it.00:07:34:15 - 00:07:55:03HarryAnd when you can't see any of that. both from a progress point of  view, it's going backwards and from an individual client project  based thing. It's not backwards, but it's just not happening. The  motivation was really tough. We had one person move. For only one  person to leave in all of that time was great in hindsight, and that  was purely just because they were at a point in their career when  they really wanted to push on and do some cool stuff from a  development point of view.00:07:55:03 - 00:08:13:09HarryThey wanted to learn new technologies, deliver cool web apps and  everything, and that just wasn't the opportunity at the time. And  therein lies another dilemma. If someone's clearly not happy, to  what extent do you keep saying, Just hang on, we can do it because  you don't know that, and it's not very respectful to them as well.  If you keep trying to fit them into a job that, you know, they're  not quite00:08:13:15 - 00:08:14:22EllieYeah, dangling some carrots.00:08:14:22 - 00:08:32:10HarryAnd that was another really tricky thing to learn. How do you try  and keep people without being able to promise anything, without  being to actually set milestones? Because everyone loves to know, if  I do this by then this will happen. You couldn't do any of that. So  incentive schemes or career progress or anything was not really  possible00:08:32:10 - 00:08:34:01EllieSo how did you navigate through that?00:08:34:12 - 00:08:57:14HarryI think that transparency came in very useful and the ability to say  "This is where we're at and if we can sign, we will unfurlough all  these people." And I said, "Right, every single project we get, it's  going to result in an unfurloughed person" or "This year is not  about making money that's long gone. But the mission of this is to  try and get everyone back in a role, get the team back", because  that's when everyone feels motivated as well, when they've got lots  of people to bounce off.00:08:57:21 - 00:09:17:07HarryIf you're the only person holding up your department it's pretty  depressing. In that furlough time. We spent so much time building  cool stuff. We had so much time to use so we built check in  applications for hotels, we did digital menus, we did track and  trace apps. We did all sorts of things. So we created a thing called  Umi Labs, which was just a playground really, that we had all these  hotels to test things on.00:09:17:08 - 00:09:32:12HarryWe don't really charge any money for it. It was just a playground,  really. For a year or two. That's actually resulted in some great PR  and some have gone forward. We created just a WordPress plugin, but  it was like a one click install and you could sell vouchers on your  site, so you didn't have to sign up for one of these big gift  voucher platforms that take a big commission.00:09:32:12 - 00:09:46:04HarryIt was just worked with Stripe, worked with Wordpress, off you go.  What vouchers you want to sell? And we have one hotel who covered  all non furloughed overheads through that - Afternoon teas and stays  and all that sort of stuff. So and that just came out of: "Oh, let's  just mess around with WordPress plug ins for a week or so."00:09:46:10 - 00:09:47:03EllieThat's incredible.00:09:47:03 - 00:09:47:19HarryThat was cool.00:09:47:19 - 00:09:54:12EllieSo when did you guys feel that you were coming out of the Dark? When  did things start picking up for you, travel wise?00:09:54:12 - 00:10:12:12HarryI think there's been a few little upticks, definitely one big uptick  was we worked with a company called Northcote Hotel slash Michelin  Star Restaurant up north. They sold Michelin star food boxes and  that was just crazy. Everyone was at home, each one was very  expensive. They had about 4000 people wanting 400 boxes in the space  of 20 minutes.00:10:12:12 - 00:10:30:02HarryThere was lots of little spikes of activity and excitement which  kept our minds sharp. I guess but properly I would say SeptemberOctober. 21 was went across the board, started having people really  interested in kickstarting their marketing campaigns again, feeling  confident enough to build new platforms, new systems, launch new  products.00:10:30:09 - 00:10:31:17EllieLong time to hold your breath.00:10:31:17 - 00:10:49:20HarryYeah, it was. And again, we're not on the frontline of hospitality,  so we're not the hotel itself, but our fortunes are almost entirely  linked to it, much like other people in the industry. You've got  booking engine providers, you've got their model is they just take  three to 5% commission on any bookings at a hotel makes. Again,  they're not on the frontline, but they are directly linked to the  success of the industry.00:10:50:05 - 00:10:56:19EllieYeah, lots of other people affected. So coming into this year, we've  finished the first quarter, now. What is next for Umi?00:10:57:02 - 00:11:17:22HarryCOVID probably taught us or taught me that pre-pandemic we'd landed  some really big projects, cool projects that should have probably  kickstarted a snowball for us and instead we were quite cautious  about it. We were very defensive and banked, that as a great  experience but didn't necessarily use it as a platform on which to  go and win loads of other big projects.00:11:17:22 - 00:11:38:08HarryNow, in one way it meant that we didn't overstretch ourselves prepandemic and in hindsight probably was a contributing factor to  getting through it because we were so defensive and had a little war  chest to keep us going. However, it did show to me that we had  opportunities and didn't take them in the past. Since October, we've  had our most successful series of four months or whatever it is in  history.00:11:38:08 - 00:11:56:15HarryWe've hired four people in the last four months, and so this year is  about really kicking on. It's using the platform of both all the  learning that we've done so not necessarily project based stuff, but  we've learnt a huge amount in the last two years and have also  landed some great projects in the last few months and it's now using  that platform to set up quite an aggressive growth strategy for the  next year, really.00:11:56:15 - 00:12:14:10HarrySo. while we've been incrementally ticking up, I've set a budget to  really kick on this year. The other big change I think as well has  been in 2020, we still had a pretty junior team. I would say. We'd  done some good stuff, but we didn't have many really experienced  people. We still have never hired ex-senior people, ex-big agency.00:12:14:15 - 00:12:37:10HarryWe haven't done that. We still have grown quite organically and  people have grown within their roles. But another HR thing, going  back to HR, was there comes a point where someone's done something  very well even having started Junior is now no longer junior, and if  you just keep incrementing them, this is the next level up, this is  the next level up, and there's like a small tick, small tick, small  tick, their next logical step would be to jump sideways.00:12:37:10 - 00:12:54:03HarryAnd so March this year, we almost like a rebalancing of just taking  a fresh perspective on everyone and start treating ourselves as more  of a small to medium sized business as opposed to a small business.  Just taking stock again, if this person was on the open market, what  does it look like and recalibrating.00:12:54:03 - 00:13:05:03HarryNow, you could get away with: "We're in a pandemic. We can't do  anything. I understand you need more or want more or... Yes, you've  learnt a lot, but there's not a huge amount I can do now." But this  was a chance to try and rebalance it and recalibrate ourselves.00:13:05:06 - 00:13:06:20EllieRetention is so important.00:13:06:20 - 00:13:26:04HarryAbsolutely. It's such a dream to have someone start junior and go  all the way through because they've got so much history in the  company. They know all the quirks and the little details, such an  invaluable addition to the culture, unless there's a definite step  that they can take, particularly having grown from a small team,  they're probably at the top of their department all the way through  so there's not like, "Oh, I can take your job!"00:13:26:04 - 00:13:42:15Harry"I'm the developer. Now I have a couple of developers underneath me,  now I know a lot more, what now? What do I do with that? There's not  a designed career ladder in this particular instance. In bigger  agencies, yes, you can have the normal steps. Wheras, for us, there  were no normal steps. I've got a wonderful operations director,  Dana, she's been my number two all the way through.00:13:42:15 - 00:13:58:18HarryBut what's next step? I don't want to do what I do. But also, we're  both complete yin and yang in the sense that she's got operations  and process and everything on complete lockdown. I'm not that at  all. For her, what's that next step when you're growing within a  company, but you've already at the top of something small, but  underneath you, things are getting bigger.00:13:59:00 - 00:13:59:24HarrySo that's been quite an interesting one.00:14:00:09 - 00:14:02:18EllieYeah. So you still in the midst of working that out?00:14:03:02 - 00:14:14:02HarryNo, I think we had a good recalibration at the beginning of March,  and we also did a rebrand at the same time. Fresh brand, new HR  system, revised contracts. I think it's created a bit of a clean  slate in a way for setting quite an aggressive growth plan.00:14:14:08 - 00:14:19:15EllieAnd you've unified the team, right? You've got everyone on board.  You know, everyone's committed, now you can push.00:14:19:22 - 00:14:36:05HarryParticularly post-COVID. If all the team start seeing the company do  very well, because we are transparent with revenue and profit and  all that kind of stuff, we're very transparent about that, if they  suddenly start seeing all of that and nothing's really changing for  them. You have the old school businesses where it might be 100%  owned by someone.00:14:36:06 - 00:14:54:07HarryThe profit that comes out of it at the end of the day is what they  live on and that's their thing and that can be huge, that can be  vast, they can be small it doesn't matter what it is, but all profit  is essentially pocketed. That attitude. I get it. I fully understand  it, but I think to a younger workforce it's really tough to get your  head around.00:14:54:14 - 00:14:54:22EllieYeah.00:14:55:05 - 00:15:08:21HarryIt just doesn't really fly anymore. If you were to say if you made  all of this profit, what are we putting back in this next year? And  I think a younger staff member is going to want to know that people  really want to be working for something bigger. I don't really know  how it was before because I've been ever really been involved in a  young team, I guess.00:15:08:21 - 00:15:09:15HarryBut interesting one.00:15:09:24 - 00:15:15:24EllieSo exciting things ahead for you guys. Thank you so much for sharing  that with us. Harry, it's been great talking to you.00:15:16:07 - 00:15:18:09HarryThank you very much for all your lovely questions.00:15:19:01 - 00:15:29:15IntroThanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe, stay  in touch and if you like what you hear. Find out more at  theagencycollective.co.uk

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:10:01IntroWelcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale. Our podcast,  where we talk to our brilliant agency owners about all things agency  life.00:00:11:00 - 00:00:17:11EllieSo today on the podcast, I am joined by Kelly Molson from Rubber  Cheese. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Kelly.00:00:17:15 - 00:00:20:18KellyThank you for having me on the podcast, it's a pleasure!00:00:21:01 - 00:00:34:02EllieYou are very, very welcome. So like we always do with Agency  Collective Tales, take us way back in time when Rubber Cheese first  started.  First off, where did the name come from?00:00:34:05 - 00:00:52:08KellyIt's such a rubbish story to this and everybody always asks about  the name and honestly, we just plucked it out of thin air because we  were young and foolish and stupid. This was like nearly 20 years  ago. So there was like a theme of agencies being called like Blue  Chile or Green Banana. So rubber cheese didn't seem that odd back  then.00:00:53:11 - 00:01:15:22KellyAnd we were like 24, 25, didn't really think through the whole brand  image or brand story stuff back then. But we did actually run a  story competition later on in our agency career. So actually if you  go to the website, you will see there is a little story on there as  to why Rubber Cheese is called Rubber Cheesebut I'm going to let you  go and find it rather than tell you00:01:15:22 - 00:01:16:10Ellie & Kelly[LAUGHTER]00:01:17:07 - 00:01:27:21EllieI'll do that. So you were 24 when the agency started. What had been  your work experience up till then? That's ever so young to make the  leap to starting your own business. How did that come about?00:01:27:23 - 00:01:47:15KellyI think it felt young then, it doesn't feel young now. There are  agency founders that are way younger than we were that are members  of the AC. So back then it felt quite young. But I'd worked in an  agency I mean, I was a graphic designer. I'd trained to be a graphic  designer and I'd worked in various roles. I guess you'd probably  call me a bit of an allrounder, so i never really found one thing  that I wanted to stick at.00:01:47:15 - 00:02:13:10KellyI did a little bit of branding design and I did some packaging  design, and then I went and worked for a marketing agency and did  marketing design. And I just stayed in places a couple of years and  then moved on. Got itchy feet, I guess. And then I ended up working  at a web design company who had developed a really early Shopify  platform, and it allowed people to build their own ecommerce shops  and think about this is like 21 years ago.00:02:13:10 - 00:02:30:22KellySo this is really a new thing back then. I think e-commerce and  shopping online was still quite a frightening thing for people. It  wasn't the norm.  I was brought in as a print designer, but then I ended up designing  ecommerce shops and I guess that was where I got my first taste of  digital think it's probably the first time that I've had an email  address as well.00:02:31:13 - 00:02:48:01KellySo long ago! And I met my co-founder Paul there. He was a designer  as well, and I think the two of us, we were almost doing the same  thing day in, day out, and we just got a little bit frustrated  really. So the two of us decided that we were going to almost go off  and freelance but do it under the Rubber Cheese name.00:02:48:01 - 00:02:51:00KellySo we hadn't really thought that much about setting up a company. It  was just:00:02:51:00 - 00:02:55:04Kelly"Let's go and freelance, let's go and do something a bit different  for a while and see where this goes."00:02:55:04 - 00:03:05:10KellyAnd we were just really lucky. So when I left the company, I sent an  email out to everybody on my email database which was probably about  20 people back then, 'cause I'd only just got an email address.00:03:05:14 - 00:03:38:10KellyBut I had just recently connected with an old school friend on  Friends Reunited - Retro, I know! And he worked at an architect's  firm, and the architects firm needed to partner with a designer or a  team of designers on a pitch they were doing for Tescos. And so they  asked if we would partner with them on it. We said, yep, and long  story short, they won the pitch and so we ended up working for  Tesco's for about two years and that was one of our first clients  and that was just a phenomenal stroke of luck because that was our  bread and butter that paid our rent and that gave us I guess a  little bit of freedom to try00:03:38:10 - 00:03:52:19Kellyout lots of different things that we wanted to do. So we did some  illustration work, we were doing some graphic design work and then  slowly over the years we just built up our client base quite  organically. It felt like a really nice easy start to agency life,  and then it got chaos.00:03:54:23 - 00:04:02:12EllieYou guys have quite a specific niche, so can you tell me about that  in terms of the clients that you work with and how you discovered  that niche?00:04:02:12 - 00:04:25:04KellyYeah, so we work a lot with visitor tourist attractions, and tourism  in general. It came about in a bit of a weird way. So one of our  longstanding clients is Pernod Ricard, global drinks company. And  they have brands under their umbrella like The Glenlivet, Abelour,  Plymouth Gin, Beefeater Gin, and we've been very lucky to work with  them for probably over ten years now on various different digital  projects.00:04:25:07 - 00:04:44:18KellyAnd a few years ago they asked us to create a ticket booking system  for the Plymouth Gin Visitor Centre, which is a great project. We  worked on that for about a year launched it, and it was such a  success for that visitor centre that they then rolled the platform  out for Beefeater Gin and then for four of the whisky distilleries  up in Scotland.00:04:45:08 - 00:05:22:08KellyAnd that project gave us an incredible insight into the visitor  economy, visitor experience attractions world. We all soon realised  how much we'd loved working on that project and how much we wanted  to do more of that kind of work. So I guess that's really where the  niche started to come from. We actively then looked for more  projects that we could use our expertise that we'd gained on that  for. Very lucky to win a pitch for Eureka, the National Children's  Museum, and those projects set us on the road to niching in that  area, which was quite scary to start with because we'd never put all  of our eggs in one basket before and we do still get enquiries  outside00:05:22:08 - 00:05:38:16Kellyof that sector. And we pick and choose whether we think that we're a  good fit for them or we pass them on to other agencies as well. I  think that's probably just a historical thing because we've been  around for so long, but we started to then focus all of our outward  marketing on that niche as well, which was quite frightening to do  that.00:05:38:16 - 00:06:00:10KellySuddenly you're making a really big statement about who you want to  work with - 'are you cutting your nose of to spite your face',  moment., But it's been fantastic, actually. And for me and the team  are all very much people that we would spend our own money on  experiences rather than stuff. And so it's a really good fit  personally for us., as well and runs through the core of our values  and what we value from a personal perspective as well.00:06:00:20 - 00:06:02:20KellySo it was the right thing to do.00:06:02:20 - 00:06:05:07EllieHundred percent. But then how did 2020 affect you?00:06:05:16 - 00:06:22:08KellyYeah, I'm not going to lie. That was quite scary! [LAUGHS] If I'm  being completey honest, 2019 had been a bit of a challenging year.  So I've spoken to quite a few agencies who had a bit of a rocky 2019  to be honest, and it was very up and down for us. So we came into  2020 with a slightly leaner team.00:06:22:14 - 00:06:45:20KellyWe came into 2020, probably a bit war wounded, bruised and feeling a  little bit damaged, but we worked our bloody arses off. We won some  brilliant projects that all kicked off at the start of 2020, so we  were in a really, really strong position. March happened and that  was pretty terrifying and I guess it did make us sit back and  question, have we done the right thing here?00:06:46:03 - 00:07:03:24KellyI think that anyone will tell you, if you're going to niche into to  a sector, it's going to take good 18 months to make any kind of  impact I would say and we had launched into that in around July  August time of 2019. So we were coming up for just six months of  that and we did sit and question and say 'What do we do?"00:07:04:02 - 00:07:24:02Kelly"We've gone all in and we've made this massive statement. It's what  we all feel and believe is the right thing for us." And so what we  did was just carry on doing everything that we could to support that  sector with the understanding that nobody had any money to spend.  People were being furloughed, made redundant, left right and centre.  It was horrendous attractions were closing, some never to be opened  ever again.00:07:24:18 - 00:07:57:05KellySo what could we do to help them? What could we do to support them?  And try and get through this dreadful time? And that was what we  did. We focussed on our podcast called Skip the Queue. We spoke to  as many people as we can. We asked them what help they needed. We  created a free e-book download with hundreds of strategies that they  could try, but when they were reopening just to try and get their  websites in the best possible position before they could reopen, I  spoke on webinars, I spoke at conferences and we just shared as much  of our expertise as we possibly could because that's all we could  do.00:07:57:17 - 00:08:20:24KellySo it was scary but that was the best thing that we could do. And  actually I made some amazing... I don't even want to say contacts.  I've just made some amazing friends within that sector, they're not  contacts anymore. They're friends who we've gone on to work with or  we've gone on to help in some way, or they actively support us in  terms of referrals and introductions and introductions just for the  podcast,00:08:20:24 - 00:08:29:11KellyI feel like it gave us the opportunity to really build a community  over that time community of people that we could really help.00:08:29:11 - 00:08:34:02EllieThat's brilliant. Must have been such a comfort going through  2020/2021.00:08:35:02 - 00:08:52:01KellyThe podcast was if I 'm honest. I've said this is blog posts, it was  the one thing that just kept me going because every week I knew that  I could speak to people, someone different, and I was going to talk  about something new, something exciting, or I was giving them a  platform to be able to share how they were feeling about what they  were going through or how they could support the industry as well.00:08:52:11 - 00:09:01:16KellyAnd it got me through that. It was brilliant. I'm so grateful to the  people that gave up their time to come and share on it because it  was helping me just as much as it was helping the audience that was  listening.00:09:02:17 - 00:09:13:13EllieI bet you were! Going from the two of you, 24, starting your agency,  just accidentally, almost. How do you then learn to be an agency  leader and lead a team?00:09:14:24 - 00:09:31:12KellyProbably still learning! [LAUGHS] It's just ongoing. Isn't it? Every  day is a learning day when it comes to stuff like that. It's a  really interesting question. It was just the two of us for a really  long time. So Paul and I for about five years and we were very much  trying to run a business, trying to get work in, trying to then do  the business.00:09:31:12 - 00:09:55:13KellyYou know, I was in a production role still then, both of us were.  And I think we would have coming up to that 30 bracket and having  that conversation about what are we doing? Is it just the two of us  forever or are we going to grow this? What does this become? And we  decided that we were going to try to grow an agency and we had to  make the decision about somebody stepping back from a production  role, really, because it was getting too difficult to manage those  two different roles.00:09:55:20 - 00:10:14:00KellyAnd then we would end up with that feast or famine where we won a  lot of business. But then we were too busy doing the business to  actually look at what the pipeline looked like, and more. And so I  took a step back from production and we hired a designer that would  take on my design role. And then it became a two year journey of  pain.00:10:14:00 - 00:10:34:12KellyI'm not going to lie. I really struggled coming from a creative  background, suddenly being thrown into a world of spreadsheets and  pipeline and profit and loss [COMICAL GROWLING NOISE] and all those  scary things that you have to learn when you're a business owner and  learning how to manage people. In any of my roles prior to that, I'd  never actually managed anybody.00:10:34:12 - 00:10:52:22KellyI'd never had a junior under me or anything like that. And so there  was a lot that I needed to learn, and it felt like a very, very  steep journey. And I actually did feel quite resentful to start with  because I felt like Paul had stayed in his designer stroke creative  director role when he got to do the things that he knew really well.00:10:53:04 - 00:11:10:13KellyAnd suddenly I've got to learn all of this stuff that I'm finding  really difficult and challenging. And I just wanted to pull my hair  out every single day. And I'd say it honestly took a good couple of  years to feel confident in that role and confident that I knew what  I was doing and I could lead that agency. Every day is a learning  day from now.00:11:10:13 - 00:11:24:09KellyI'm really lucky that I have a really good agency network around me.  Obviously, we've got Agency Collective, who's been an incredible  support and there's always someone that's been through an experience  that you're about to go through that you can ask: "Has anyone gone  through this?" And instantly you'll have like00:11:24:09 - 00:11:25:14EllieBeen there, done that advice.00:11:25:14 - 00:11:30:19KellyYeah, five or six people will be like, "Yes, oh my God, this has  happened to us as well, and you're not alone in it all"00:11:30:19 - 00:11:39:05KellyAnd that's probably the best thing that I did, is just try and build  up as many agency contacts as I possibly could, who would support me  through that journey of pain.00:11:41:06 - 00:11:45:20EllieWhat's next for Rubber Cheese, then? What's coming up and where do  you see the agency going00:11:45:20 - 00:12:05:13KellyThere's been lots of change already. Obviously, the pandemic made  big changes for everybody. It's interesting because in 2019 we had  one team member who moved back home up north, so we were already  running a semi remote working model. So we had experience of how  that might work for us. And at the moment that's what we've gone to.  Everyone was really happy our office lease came up.00:12:05:17 - 00:12:23:06KellyNobody really wanted to go back there five days a week. So at the  moment we're just running a remote office. So that's been a new way  of working and a new way of patterns to understand how to lead an  agency like that. The niche is doing brillianty. So we've got some  fabulous client partners that we're working with within that, so I  can only see that going from strength to strength.00:12:23:10 - 00:12:39:11KellyAnd there's some exciting things happening with the podcast and an  event that will be happening hopefully at the beginning of next  year. And that's something that we see developing more and more of -  us doing live events again, which would be amazing to get people  back in the room.00:12:39:11 - 00:12:49:18KellyLots of change, lots of exciting things happening moving forward,  and I think maybe a slightly different role for myself as well  because we've just had our lovely little girl, she's eight months  now.00:12:50:01 - 00:13:03:02KellyLife is very different for me personally now, and I think that has  to be reflected in what I do with the agency as well. So I think  there might be a few changes coming up there that will help me  manage my work/life balance a little bit better than it currently  is.00:13:04:00 - 00:13:12:10EllieWell, I wish you all of the luck for the future, and hope you get  that work/life balance. It's so important. And you as an agency  founder, you've got to lead the way for the team as well, right?00:13:12:18 - 00:13:16:08KellyAbsolutely. Yeah. If it doesn't come from the top down, then it's  not going to happen, is it?00:13:17:03 - 00:13:19:02EllieBrilliant. Thanks so much, Kelly. It's been great.00:13:19:11 - 00:13:22:01KellyThank you. So lovely to be on. Really appreciate it.00:13:22:19 - 00:13:33:08IntroThanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe. Stay  in touch. And if you like what you hear. Find out more at  theagencycollective. co.uk.

00:00:01:17 - 00:00:08:20EllieToday on the Agency Collective Tales. I am joined by Tomasz Dyl fromGottabe! Marketing. Thanks so much for being on the podcast.00:00:09:07 - 00:00:10:22TomaszHello! And thanks for having me.00:00:11:09 - 00:00:20:24EllieYou're very, very welcome. So, Tomasz, like we always do at theAgency Collective Tales, let's start at the beginning. Tell me a bitabout how your agency started.00:00:21:07 - 00:00:43:05TomaszA few days ago we've turned 14, so it's been a quite a long journeyover the 14 years. I started the business when I was just finishingat college. I was 17 at the time, so hence I give away how old I am.The idea was to create an agency that would help bridge the gap andallow companies to better connect with some of the ethnic minoritiesthat were coming into the country at the time.00:00:43:06 - 00:01:10:19TomaszObviously, 8 countries joined the European Union in 2004, includingPoland, where I'm originally from, and the idea was to build thegap, build a bridge and allow companies to better communicate. Andthere's this massive group of people, massive opportunity. Yetagain, no one is taking advantage of it. So for me, it was aboutbeing able to say to brands saying:"Hello, I can help you, I can get you in front of these guys and Ican do it in a very different way to how you probably go about it."00:01:10:19 - 00:01:29:00TomaszBecause at the time I did it in Polish, we did it in Hungarian, wedid it in Czech and now we serve our clients in 45 differentlanguages, doing exactly what we did 14 years ago, but now even inmuch more through different channels, through different options. Andthat's the little journey. And we've grown quite a bit, obviouslyback in the day00:01:29:00 - 00:01:38:21Tomaszit was just myself. Now we've a strong team of 12 and we've also gottwo offices in the UK and one in Ireland. So we're working acrossthe pond as well, as well as having two offers in the UK00:01:38:21 - 00:01:39:23EllieThat's amazing.00:01:40:03 - 00:01:49:08EllieSo did your 17 year old self have any idea about the scale that youwere going to grow to or did you just see a gap and think:"I'm going to do some good things here?"00:01:49:16 - 00:02:15:19TomaszYes, certainly it was spotting the gap and the whole plan was to doit for three years , whilst I was at uni, get that experience andthen to be able to go to a nine to five job, hopefully being bitmore experienced and saying:"Hey guys, I've actually got some experience now."Well, that plan didn't really materialise, asyou can tell becauseI'm still here, still running the business.But I'm glad I didn't, because I think I would have been so lostworking in a different agency and not being able to build my ownlittle baby.00:02:16:01 - 00:02:35:00TomaszSo yes, certainly it's about finding a gap and taking that gap andreally evolving it. And the last two years have really been crazybecause whilst the pandemic was actually out there and I know a lotof agencies struggled, we've actually pivoted very well and we'vehad more signings in the last two years than we have probably in thelast five years.00:02:35:08 - 00:02:54:24TomaszBut that's because we saw things like what impact of BAME on COVIDand COVID impacting the lower class. And that's opened eyes to a lotof brands who've never considered multicultural marketing before toall of a sudden think:" We need to actually go out and speak to our customers. We need totarget them in a different way. to how we are targeted."00:02:55:09 - 00:03:00:05TomaszAnd people keep on telling us we under-represented so we need to acton our representation somehow.00:03:00:18 - 00:03:12:17EllieBrilliant. So how do you tackle that with brands that perhaps don'tthink diversity, equity and inclusion is important?Do you gently do it, or are you just upfront and say:"Come on guys, what are you doing here?"00:03:13:10 - 00:03:37:02TomaszOh, we're very upfront. We spent the last two years educatingbrands, so from our research and from what we understand is only onein five brands at the moment are doing anything in this space. It'schanging. It's slightly moving to probably one in three but it'sstill a huge gap. I mean, we've got brands out that have neverconsidered it and don't see a reason why they should do.They bluntly told us to our faces:"We don't need to do it, we're quite happy."00:03:37:02 - 00:03:59:09Tomasz"Customers are coming in and we don't need to do anything else."And on the other hand, you've got companies who are thinking:"We really need to be able to change this. We really need to beable to make a difference and ensure that we're talking toeverybody."We're continuously educating brands and agencies as well, because Ithink the problem is between the two: Agencies are not doing enoughto be able to say to them:"We're needing you to push you. We need you to do something more."00:03:59:09 - 00:04:22:23TomaszAnd equally brands need to do more and they need to start realisingthat the world has changed - the society has really gone beyond whatthe traditional family of two plus one is and so on. And we need tostart thinking how do we represent ourselves? And is the marketingthat we're putting out there really representative of today'ssociety and today's audience?00:04:22:23 - 00:04:26:00TomaszAnd for most companies, unfortunately it isn't00:04:26:00 - 00:04:51:01EllieAbsolutely not. I think as well, it's just the:"It's going all right, so why should I change anything?", ratherthan the bigger picture.I think if agencies and brands don't step up and start takingaction and making changes to make themselves more diverse in theirway of thinking, more diverse in their creative projects, thatthey're putting out there, they're going to be so far behind thetimes that brands will just be turned off by them completely.00:04:51:08 - 00:05:18:02TomaszAbsolutely. And as I said, that's why I think the responsibility weput into two parts. It's not just the brands, it's the agencies thathave to do more as well. And we're seeing a shift in one way wherethe agencies are bringing in more diverse teams, they're looking atother options, but I don't think they're still utilising the optionsthat we have when it comes to targeting, because putting an ad witha South Asian family on ITV is not necessarily where that audienceis going to be.00:05:18:02 - 00:05:42:19TomaszThey're watching Zee TV, they're reading Eastern Eye, they'relistening to Sunrise Radio and not Kiss! So we've got to be mindfulthat there is over 250 different publications that are printed inother languages than English and are consumed collectively by agroup of 6 million people. So we need to be able to utilise that. Sothere is a whole brand new world out there that for a lot hasn'tbeen discovered and that's what we're trying to do.00:05:42:20 - 00:05:51:14TomaszWe're saying: "Let us take you on this little journey that youhaven't been on and let's see how we can get you in front of peoplethat you think you are in the front, but actually, you're not.00:05:52:14 - 00:06:03:06EllieThat's really admirable. As an agency founder, what do you thinkagency founders can be doing to make their teams more diverse? Isthere anything you've particularly done with your team?00:06:04:01 - 00:06:30:11TomaszSo we do things like learning to learn, where we take on theculture, we take on a country, and we do a deep dive into them to beable to educate our staff. But equally educate ourselves on whatelse could we be knowing about this audience and what could we dowith them?In terms of diversifying the staff, I think one of the things we'vedone and that works quite well for us is anonymous interviews andfrom the perspective that when we get applications, we don't get tosee people's names.00:06:30:11 - 00:06:53:08TomaszSo straight away, if someone's name is Muhammad it doesn't go intothe bin because we don't think that person is going to do. Where Iknow in some agencies, unfortunately people have experienced it.We've a colleague internally who, because of her background beingRomanian, applied for jobs and because of her name, she juststraightaway got declined. Then she change her name but didn'tchange her CV to Kelly and all of a sudden, started to getinterviews.00:06:53:08 - 00:07:08:01TomaszSo we're judging people by the name. We haven't even got to whattheir experience and everything else is. We've just seen the nameand we think: "Oh, they're foreign, we don't want them." We shouldbe giving everybody equal opportunity no matter what background theyare from what that name they are.00:07:08:08 - 00:07:12:05EllieYeah. Have you faced any prejudice then with your name as an agencyfounder?00:07:12:17 - 00:07:36:14TomaszYes. We have been told we're very foreign and ten years ago I tookquite big offence to it. But right now I think if you notdiversifying, you're not inclusive, I think you're not in the rightspace. I think my name is relatively similar to a English spellingof Tomasz. I say relatively, it's still got a few letter differenceand my surname being Dyl could be anywhere in the world.00:07:36:22 - 00:07:51:05TomaszI don't necessarily get as much probably as people who might haveother names but we have experienced this where we pitched for a bigbrand and the feedback to us is that they would prefer to work witha brand or an agency that is more British than foreign.00:07:51:05 - 00:07:52:21EllieGod. That's so mad!00:07:52:21 - 00:08:12:19EllieThat's society. We've got to get used to it. It's not always goingto be all lovely and useful. Sometimes you will experience that, butit's not just based on someone's nationality. You can experience thesame thing based on your sexuality, based on your colour hair andall that. So there's always going to be someone who's not happy withhow you look, how you come across, and they will pick on you.00:08:13:01 - 00:08:32:02TomaszThat could happen to a Polish person, that can happen to a Romanianperson or that can happen to a Chinese person. Look what we've seentwo years ago, Chinese people being beat up in the streets becausethey brought Covid into the UK. I don't necessarily think it wasthem personally that brought it, but we have seen people beingabused, thrown at, beaten up in the streets because they broughtCovid.00:08:32:03 - 00:08:40:06TomaszIt is a global pandemic. Wake up. Come on, let's look at the news.Let's see what's going on now. And if you're not shortsighted, Ithink you need to have a real good self-check.00:08:40:12 - 00:08:50:07EllieAbsolutely. Yeah. Can you talk me through any real success storiesthat you've had with clients where you have really transformed theirreach?00:08:51:06 - 00:08:58:17TomaszYeah, I would use example of a recent campaign, which earlier thisweek we have actually won an award for campaign of the Year of theGG2 Diversity & Inclusivity Awards.00:08:58:24 - 00:08:59:16EllieThat's amazing.00:09:00:05 - 00:09:26:18TomaszThank you. It's our work with the NHS, working with the Southamptonand Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, CCG, the clinical commissioninggroup, as well as the Hampshire County Council. And the campaign wasvery challenging. It was to try and get more uptake from the EasternEuropean Community on the vaccination.The campaign we faced nationwide, not just in Hampshire. EasternEuropeans, for very odd reasons, have been very reluctant to it.00:09:26:23 - 00:09:57:00TomaszThey didn't necessarily believe in Covid, and they didn'tnecessarily think that they had to get vaccinated. So we ran acampaign where we tried to get rid of the myths. Equally, we triedto deliver educational content to people so it wasn't necessarilyhand holding them and walking them to the nearest vaccinationcentre. We said to them:"We want to give you a choice, but we want to give you the rightinformation."And when we did the initial research, when we did the focus groups,we found that people were reluctant because there wasn't enoughinformation and they couldn't find any information.00:09:57:00 - 00:10:16:20TomaszThey found the gov website being extremely boring, not easy tounderstand. The language over there was very difficult for them, andthey were simply looking for information such as what is a sideeffects, what are the ingredients? Because some people have gotallergies, etc. And what are the options in terms of what are thedifferent vaccines and how do they differ?00:10:16:22 - 00:10:39:09TomaszSo we put all this together into a bilingual leaflet and we workwith local employers, we work with the local ethnic media, but alsodone a lot of work on the ground in terms of speaking to people atvarious places, whether that's that ethnic Polish shop or that's aPolish church or Romanian Saturday school and utilise theopportunity to talk to people, answer any questions and educatethem.00:10:39:16 - 00:10:55:00TomaszAnd again, of course the direction was that once you're ready, comeand get vaccinated, but it wasn't necessarily saying to people:"We've now got you, I'm gonna take your hands, I'm going to put ona handcuff and I'm going to take you to the nearest vaccinationcentre."That wasn't the case. The idea was to increase the awareness anddrive.00:10:55:01 - 00:11:00:11TomaszIn Hampshire, the "White, other" as it's being referred to, becamein the top three of the most vaccinated.00:11:00:17 - 00:11:01:21EllieAmazing.00:11:02:11 - 00:11:24:14TomaszFor us, this particular project was even more important from theperspective that it had a real purpose. We change people's life byexplaining to them and giving them the information they weren'tgetting in first place. And being able to deliver it in a languagethat they understood meant that their information was gettingthrough to them much quicker, than trying to tell them:"Go on the gov website and find out information there, cause Is itall there."00:11:24:21 - 00:11:32:21TomaszSo very often we presume things, but unfortunately we can't do that.We've got to listen to the people that are around us and find outwhat can we do to help them.00:11:33:19 - 00:11:45:06EllieThat's wonderful Tomasz What is it that's been your key lesson overthe past 14 years. Is there anything that you wish you had known inthe first couple of years of running your agency?00:11:45:20 - 00:11:59:16TomaszStarting a business when you're 17, you're very lost. I didn't knowmuch about pricing structure. I didn't do much about how to pitch. Ididn't know how to sell. I had to learn it all by myself. And it wasa very lonely place back then. There was not as much support asthere is around now.00:11:59:16 - 00:12:26:10TomaszWith growth, for me, I had to get my feet on the ground and try towork it out test the waters, etc. If anything, would have been niceto have a mentor who runs an agency and is able to see and take meas somebody that I can mould and get better. So I think I would havereally appreciated that. But 14 years on and now I'm on the GoldmanSachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme, looking to improve theprofitability and grow our business.00:12:26:10 - 00:12:30:16TomaszSo I think I haven't missed out on anything. I'm just 14 years alittle bit late!00:12:31:17 - 00:12:52:07EllieNot at all. The thing that I learned, running The Agency Collectiveis that everybody's on their own journey. You can't mark yoursuccess by looking at another agency because the number of staffthat you have, you might be comfortable with. The lifestyle thatyou've got, the work life balance that you've got, the aspirationsthat you've got. What it is that feeds your soul is so completelydifferent agency to agency.00:12:52:11 - 00:13:04:20EllieI definitely think I'm seeing more of a move for profit withpurpose. It's not enough to just be doing good work. What's behindit? What change are you looking to make? Are you really seeing thatwith clients that you're working with?00:13:05:09 - 00:13:26:07TomaszAbsolutely. I think the reason the clients come to us is that theyreally want to make a purpose and they want to make a change and notnecessarily getting the expertise from the mainstream agencies thatthey work with, and they have to look for specialised ones and thisis why they come to us. But at the same time, we work with a lot ofother agencies who simply put their hand up to the client and say:00:13:26:07 - 00:13:49:09Tomasz"Look, this is outside of our comfort zone. We could probably doit, but we're probably not going to deliver it in the best form. Andthe best possible option. However, we have a partner agency that cando that. And let me introduce you to Tomasz and we will workalongside Tomasz and delivering this campaign. So we will look afterthis aspect of the campaign and they will look after the ethnic andmulticultural aspects. We will create one campaign, but it will beseen by everybody."00:13:49:09 - 00:14:11:07TomaszSo it's great that some agencies have already identified us and arevery keen to work with agencies like us who are just simply anextension to their team because we're not looking to steal any workfrom anybody. We have our own niche and that's where we want tofocus and that's what we want to continue doing as much as we can goafter brands ourselves and do it, I think agencies also need to beable to say to the clients:00:14:11:07 - 00:14:18:08Tomasz"Let's change how we position ourselves, how we market to yourcustomers, and let's look at how we can collaborate with others."00:14:18:08 - 00:14:27:10TomaszIt can open new doors and it's not just for the ethnic minorities.There is a fantastic agency called the Purple Goat that is focussingon disabled influencers.00:14:27:10 - 00:14:53:11TomaszI can't think of a single campaign that's actually showed a disabledinfluencer, but these guys have got their own niche and they workwith some of the world's biggest brands right now because they founda niche and they're going for it. So I think that there is room foreverybody. And I think this is what for us, the big focus for 2022is to make more friends with other agency owners and say to them:"Let's work together.00:14:54:08 - 00:15:12:22EllieThat's brilliant. Just to finish up Tomasz, what would be thebiggest piece of advice you could offer agencies that are perhapsoverwhelmed by the diversity, equity and inclusion piece? They don'tknow where to start. They don't know what to do. What would be sometop tips if maybe you could offer them?00:15:13:07 - 00:15:32:24TomaszI would say you can do two things. You can it to try and find thesolution yourself and try and learn this. But I've been in thisindustry for 14 years and I'm still learning every day somethingdifferent about the different groups of people that surround me. Andthere isn't a day where don't I go:"Wow, I didn't notice this. I could have really benefited from thisfive years ago",00:15:32:24 - 00:15:44:24TomaszBut by simply having this conversation with different people,whether that's a Muslim person, whether that is somebody who isSikh, or whether that's somebody who is Bulgarian or even a Polishperson, you get to know these things.00:15:45:06 - 00:15:58:14TomaszStart with doing your own research and try to get as muchinformation as possible. There are various books. There is so muchcontent online, whether that's webinars, whether that's interviews,podcasts, you can really listen to and get to know this.00:15:58:14 - 00:16:09:02TomaszAnd secondly, don't be afraid to reach out to people who are in theagency space, who specialise in that area, and you find that they'reactually very welcoming and they'll happily give a lot of advice.00:16:09:05 - 00:16:18:02TomaszI think the biggest advice I can say is go out there and speak topeople. There are amazing community groups. You can really get realinsight.00:16:18:02 - 00:16:33:18TomaszThere's so many different reports out there that you can get yourhands on on data and everything else. And even the latestinformation - that new settlement scheme. Again, we're shocked as tohow little awareness there is and how agencies are not utilising theinformation.00:16:33:18 - 00:16:47:20TomaszBut it gives you a breakdown into everything into every Europeannationality and tells you where they're located, how many of themare in the country. And that's a mind blowing exercise because ifwe're running a campaign to Ealing for a client we can think:00:16:47:20 - 00:16:54:23Tomasz"Oh, right, okay, we can really get into these groups because that'swhat the new settlement scheme information has given us and is themost up to date information."00:16:54:23 - 00:17:07:19TomaszWe don't have censuses yet. That's not going to come out for anotherthree or four months. We've already got other information they canbe utilising. So I would definitely say go out there and find theirinformation and you'd be amazed as to how much is out there.00:17:08:22 - 00:17:28:12EllieThat's brilliant advice. Thank you. And what about internally, whatadvice have you got for agencies whose team are all the same raceare all the same nationality? Are all around the same age? Becauselots of agencies say they just hire the best people for the job. Andwhat that means is it tends to be lots of carbon copies of the sameemployee that they're hiring.00:17:29:09 - 00:17:59:01TomaszYeah, I would definitely say try and minimise and strip down yourrecruitment process, where you do blind interviews and everythingelse. So you don't necessarily get to see the name, don't get to seetheir age and just look at that. I think broaden your horizons interms of where you might be recruiting. You can advertise on Indeed,LinkedIn, whatever it might be, or maybe you want to actually lookat some of the publications at the portals that are out there, evenThe Voice, for example, which is one of the leading Afro-Caribbeanpublications, they've got their own portal where you can advertise.00:17:59:01 - 00:18:25:12TomaszSo if you're looking for somebody of Afro-Caribbean origins, equallyadvertise on there, broaden your horizons where you can go out andrecruit. I think the other thing is look at the universities, wherethere is a lot of talent and you can actually pick very nicestudents who are of international background as well. They're ableto come in because you tend to find that people who are from adifferent background tend to bring a lot of different expertise,point of view, and they're very, very desired00:18:25:12 - 00:18:33:08EllieThat's brilliant. Thank you so much. That's been really, reallygreat advice. Really looking forward to seeing what GottaBe! doesnext!00:18:33:14 - 00:18:34:03TomaszThank you.

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:07:10EllieI am talking today on the podcast to Serdar Paktin in from Pakt. Thank you so  much for being on our podcast.00:00:07:17 - 00:00:08:19Serdar PaktinThank you for inviting me.00:00:09:00 - 00:00:16:07EllieSo I'm really excited to learn where your agency came from. So a bit about your  background and a bit about how you started your agency.00:00:16:21 - 00:00:44:16Serdar PaktinI was working as a strategist and I was getting on the side projects from UK and  overseas agencies when I lived in Istanbul. I was working as a cultural inside  semiotics consultant for global agencies that are focussing on Turkey, and then I  extended doing that to Middle East and North Africa. And when I started doing my  own business, I had one thing - the international on the sides, and I had one local  brands on the other side.00:00:44:21 - 00:00:55:03Serdar PaktinAnd the international side of the business grew by itself. Me, without investing any  time in it. I was investing all the time to my Turkish clients, and it didn't really pick  up.00:00:55:03 - 00:00:55:14EllieRight.00:00:55:14 - 00:01:08:14Serdar PaktinIt was like a clear decision which direction to go. And I moved the agency to  London in 2018. And since then I'm working with international clients and other  agencies that we helped to discover.00:01:08:14 - 00:01:32:07Serdar PaktinTurkey, Middle East and North Africa region. And we were extending beyond that  to more often non-Western markets. Pakt is a holistic sense making agency. We  focus on cross-cultural understanding and cultural insights to help our clients make  better decisions across cultures and understanding their audiences, discovering  opportunity areas in different cultural spaces, so to speak.00:01:32:18 - 00:01:37:01EllieHave you managed to stop your clients from making any major faux pas?00:01:37:08 - 00:02:12:10Serdar PaktinI believe that we made a few things with Netflix, for instance, in 2019 made their  first Turkish Netflix original, which was a super hero saving Istanbul from immortal  evil people. And that didn't really pick up. In its first season, I think they were  wondering what they did wrong, and we worked on a bigger semiotics project. We  watched more than 50 titles: Netflix and non-Netflix; International and local; TV  series and movies, and we came up with a map of storyline and characters and  production, and we came up saying:  "These are the insights.00:02:12:10 - 00:02:37:05Serdar PaktinThese are what you should focus on and is what you're doing wrong." One of the  major things is that Turkey and most Middle East and Eastern markets are  collectivist cultures. So it's based on the community rather than the individual. And  most of the Western countries are based on individuals. Therefore, in a Western  market, a superhero story might be interesting because it's based on an individual  accomplishing something.00:02:37:05 - 00:02:46:03Serdar PaktinBut in the Eastern market, it is more focussing on the community about  neighbourhoods, about families. So there is more of a community in there and00:02:46:09 - 00:02:47:19EllieIt just wasn't resonating at all.00:02:47:19 - 00:03:05:22Serdar PaktinExactly. So, a super superhero saving Istanbul is not resonating and they also  prefer realistic characters, somebody they could really sit down at a dinner table  and have a conversation with. By the time when we were doing the research, I  visited Istanbul and I was talking to this cab driver and I said: "Look, what do you  think about the superhero on Netflix?"00:03:06:05 - 00:03:31:01Serdar PaktinHe said: "We are all superheroes making home at night. You don't need somebody  saving the whole city, making home safe, feeding your family is good enough to be  a superhero. For your community." Since then, Netflix is creating really successful  series in Turkey, Netflix originals, and they also recently published a report how  much they contribute to the Turkish economy in the last three years.00:03:31:02 - 00:03:36:04Serdar PaktinAnd I think we have part in that, but I can't really claim that part of it.00:03:36:04 - 00:03:42:01EllieDamn it! You can't claim it was solely you, but you were part of it. That's amazing -  how exciting!00:03:42:01 - 00:04:02:24Serdar PaktinIt is, as you said, we help them understand the culture, the cultural codes in that  market, and we helped them make better decisions or design new products or  develop new services for that cultural opportunity in that region, in that subculture.  It doesn't have to be different cultures. It could be a subculture within a country as  well, because cyclists, it is a culture.00:04:03:01 - 00:04:11:03Serdar PaktinYou have to understand cyclists to be able to provide them value. Vegans,  vegetarians, they all have their own culture underneath that.00:04:11:03 - 00:04:23:00EllieThat's brilliant. What's it like starting an agency in a new country? Had you lived in  London before, or did you just come over completely fresh, thinking: "New country,  new agency? Here I go!"00:04:23:06 - 00:04:48:02Serdar PaktinWell, I'd never been to the UK before. I came here first time in 2016 or 17. By the  time I was contemplating about moving abroad and I had two options be it's either  New York or London, and I lived in New York before and that's why that was my  first choice. But I had a project in New York and I spent a month there and I  decided: "No, New York is no longer where I want to live."00:04:48:12 - 00:05:10:24Serdar PaktinAnd then I came to London and the first step out of this tube, looking around,  seeing the people, I said: "I could live here!" But also UK had a visa deal with  Turkey. So it was easier to get a visa. I already have clients here, so it was also  another advantage to choose here. And there's also little time difference between  Turkey and London and also it's quicker to fly in between.00:05:11:03 - 00:05:29:22Serdar PaktinThese are the four main points why I chose London, and that was my first time  moving here. So it was difficult because my background is in cultural studies that  have focus on American studies. So I already knew American culture, American  type of business, and American way of doing things. But the British way of doing  things and British business culture was a novelty to me.00:05:30:00 - 00:05:39:11EllieThat's really interesting. So as a cultural insight specialist, what are the business  cultural differences then between the US and the UK?00:05:39:22 - 00:06:02:12Serdar PaktinThe polite indirectness in the culture is the major thing. I'm good at understanding  it, but implementing it, I'm still having difficulties. Americans are very direct and  Turks are quite direct as well. The UK is not as easy as the US to penetrate as an  outsider. Once you come in, it would need some time for the community to accept  you.00:06:02:13 - 00:06:21:16Serdar PaktinMy first years were trying to prove myself again to ex-clients, long standing  relationship. Well, when you're in the country, I think that relationship changes a bit  to them, until once again, we are able to get to that point. US is more open to  people who want to do things, and once you start creating it, they just let you in.00:06:21:16 - 00:06:27:06Serdar PaktinAs long as you're producing value. This is more of community that's letting you in  slowly in the UK.00:06:27:09 - 00:06:28:16EllieA bit more sceptical.00:06:28:19 - 00:06:46:07Serdar PaktinI would say so, yeah, but that's also probably related to that long standing culture  of business. US in comparison to UK is just the last few hundred years and there's  this almost a thousand years of business tradition here and it's quite  understandable to have that checkpoint, so to speak.00:06:46:19 - 00:07:02:23EllieSo how do you find your clients for Pakt? Is it a case of you going in, and trying to  source and trying to suss out who might have a need for your services or when  you have the need for cultural insights? Is it really clear and is it really apparent?00:07:03:03 - 00:07:27:18Serdar PaktinMy background is in strategy. So I have always been a strategist and then I moved  into a niche part of strategy, into cultural insights, into semiotics. And most of my  clients have come to me through existing clients and through referrals. And as I  said, I'm a strategist, so I'm not really good at new business. So I am not  really creating new business myself by reaching out to people and creating  connections -00:07:27:18 - 00:07:30:20Serdar PaktinMost of my business still comes from referrals and networks.00:07:30:24 - 00:07:32:12EllieA brilliant way to get your new business.00:07:32:18 - 00:07:57:13Serdar PaktinYeah, it means that you're doing a good job, so that they're referring to other  people, which is great. I think you need to be able to get good at creating new  business through new relationships. Out of blue or reaching out to your potential  clients. And one of my methods is to build hypothesis on opportunity areas  because our skill set is to find opportunities within a cultural space and presenting  it to potential clients.00:07:57:13 - 00:08:05:13Serdar PaktinBut as long as they're not aware of that opportunity, that's not really resonating  with them. So it was a good experiment, but it's not the way forward, apparently!00:08:05:13 - 00:08:13:21EllieYou were talking to yourself, I imagine. You were like: "There's this space where  you could do this!" And they're like: "What is that? I don't want to do that. We're not  doing that." So you're like, "Oh, I see."00:08:13:21 - 00:08:19:04EllieWhat have been your key challenges and learnings the past four years?00:08:19:08 - 00:08:41:06Serdar PaktinIt's a difficult question. There's so many things that's rushing to my mind  immediately. First thing, we have a saying: "A tailor cannot mend his own clothes  or a doctor cannot cure themselves." Even though we consult with our clients. You  need to listen to your target audience. You need to know who they are and shape  your value proposition and your benefits towards their understanding.00:08:41:06 - 00:08:59:13Serdar PaktinWhen I first came in, I wasn't doing that really. I was doing what I believed would  be the meaningful thing and then just implementing it, not even testing it, not even  thinking through it. Just going straight ahead. Like any other entrepreneur - When  we talk to them,we say: "That's not the way forward." And then doing it yourself is quite ironic.00:08:59:17 - 00:09:13:14EllieAgency founders do that all the time, though. You can do the do for your clients,  but actually when it comes to yourself or your self-promotion or web development  agencies that never work on their own website, because you don't fix yourself. It's  interesting, isn't it?00:09:13:19 - 00:09:19:05Serdar PaktinThat's interesting. We know how to do it and we don't really do it for ourselves, and  it's very ironic.00:09:19:05 - 00:09:31:16Serdar PaktinSecond thing I would say, most of the agencies in our space, like working with  cultural insights and semiotics, when I first moved in, I was doing this research and  I realised that we were all trying to sell the methodology.00:09:31:16 - 00:09:50:07Serdar PaktinIt is like a car company trying to sell VDU machine engineering. But a car company  sells mobility. We get you from point A to point B and people who buy the car does  not really care if it's machine engineering or AI technology: "Whatever you do, you  do it. Just give me the product and I'm here for the benefit that the product  provides me."00:09:50:07 - 00:10:13:16Serdar PaktinAnd the agencies, we're more focussing on the methodology rather than the  outcome or the benefits that they are providing for their clients. So I try to focus on  that and I think I didn't really do it a good way because I was also focussing on  something missing the point rather than the benefits. After doing it for two years,  the pandemic gave you quite an extensive time to think about these kind of things  that are00:10:13:17 - 00:10:16:04EllieTwo years of some solid thinking time.[LAUGHS]00:10:16:16 - 00:10:40:01Serdar PaktinI realised: "I'm doing everything wrong!" And I'm still not doing everything right, but  I'm working on it to realise how to simplify things, turn it into a storytelling approach  and then make it very clear and simple for clients to understand what benefit  you're providing them. And as you can see, I'm still not really good at it.00:10:40:12 - 00:10:50:21EllieI think you're doing fine. Agency founders are going to be listening to this podcast.  In terms of cultural analysis, what would you say the key benefits are for them  doing a real deep dive?00:10:51:11 - 00:11:16:13Serdar PaktinI can say two major things. One, to avoid any major mistakes that they wouldn't  realise in their branding strategy, product development, that's going to take them a  long time. Investing in a cultural analysis beforehand saves a lot of time and  money. For instance, this is from a very early project. We were working on a soup  product and the soup product was going to be liquid form and we were focussing  on the Turkish market again.00:11:16:13 - 00:11:43:20Serdar PaktinAnd then at the end of the project we came up with soup means nutrition in Turkey  - could be a full meal by itself, but in a Western culture, soup is more liquid  because it's regarded as an appetiser mostly and then if they have the assumption  of a soup in a Western sense and they implemented a liquid form soup into a bottle  or a box and put it on the shelf and then it didn't work, it was going to be first: "Did  we do something wrong with the shelf choice that we made in there?"00:11:43:20 - 00:11:57:05Serdar PaktinAnd then it was going to be the branding and the packaging. And then when you  come to the content itself as it's meaningful or not, what's going to be the last thing  that they want to think? When it becomes the first thing that you think it avoids all  that big layering of mistakes.00:11:57:11 - 00:12:01:01EllieYeah! All of that old hoo-ha! You want your products to be the most impactful,  right?00:12:01:10 - 00:12:26:10Serdar PaktinFocussing on the content and the semiotics and the cultural codes of your market  gives you all the clues. What your product should be, how it should speak, what it  should present as a benefit. As cultural codes define our preferences and beliefs  collectively. They speak about consumer psychology. But before psychology,  comes culture and our decisions and behaviours are automatically defined in our  culture.00:12:26:10 - 00:12:41:06Serdar PaktinAnd if you understand the cultural codes, you know what moves people or what  people think is meaningful or not. And by that you avoid  doing a lot of mistakes in designing and implementing and executing and market  entry. But it saves a lot of time and money.00:12:41:06 - 00:12:53:17Serdar PaktinSecond thing - it could help them discover new opportunity areas: Developing new  products, new services for that cultural space, or pivoting their products to the  needs of those spaces.00:12:53:17 - 00:13:24:06Serdar PaktinFor instance, we had this talk with a major music streaming platform before they  were going to penetrate into Middle East, but the music listening habits and what  people expect from music and when they listen to music, why they listen to music  is different than the Western audience. So if you are going to enter the Middle  Eastern market, you need to pivot your product a bit to reflect the needs and the  culture of that thing, because music is a cultural product and you can't just  implement a global product into the whole world the way it is.00:13:24:11 - 00:13:46:12Serdar PaktinAnd Facebook and Netflix understand this a lot, and they do a lot of research in  understanding different cultural spaces, and they implement that. So you can see  the success of Netflix originals in regional spaces because they do these  overarching cultures. They do one for the Turkish Netflix audience and sell it to the  whole region. Taking an Israeli or Lebanese Netflix original, selling to the whole  region.00:13:46:12 - 00:13:59:08Serdar PaktinAnd then they go to global scale. It's like Casa de Papel or Squid Game. They are  supposed to be regional products, but they got something right in a global sense  and they exceeded beyond expectation.00:13:59:08 - 00:14:19:07Serdar PaktinTo summarise: By doing this cultural analysis, agencies and brands could avoid  doing major mistakes in different markets, in different cultural spaces, or discover  new opportunity areas in those cultural spaces to build new products and services  or pivoting their brands and positioning into those cultural spaces.00:14:19:20 - 00:14:31:04EllieThat's brilliant. Is the majority of your work in other countries or like you said, is it  becoming more about the sub communities, like the way you speak to cyclists and  their interests or vegans like you said?00:14:31:06 - 00:14:58:15Serdar PaktinI mean, I can see that there is work being done towards subcultures but they're not  still doing with a cultural emphasis on it. Still, the creative agencies do it in their  own way. I don't think they do it with a cultural emphasis on it, but also I don't know  the whole space. So it's my assumption, but it's still - more of a regional, local and  national cultures are the main essence of this kind of work, but I think it's already  moving to that space.00:14:58:15 - 00:15:23:04Serdar PaktinBut it is still done by not cultural experts - like mostly creators and other kinds of  researchers, I guess. So we should move the subcultures into the cultural domain  in terms of understanding their semiotics, understanding their cultural codes, with  cyclists, with vegan, with weekend campers - they all have a certain code of  conduct and cultural codes, and there's certain things that they aspire to.00:15:23:04 - 00:15:29:16Serdar PaktinAnd I'm giving cyclists and vegans as an example because those are the most  obvious ones that we can relate to.00:15:29:23 - 00:15:35:11EllieAbsolutely. So what is next for Pakt - what's coming up? What do you see  happening in the next couple of years?00:15:36:02 - 00:15:57:12Serdar PaktinGreat question. We had two years hold, so we want to continue where we left off in  2020 because it was like first two years in the UK. We just established and got into  a steady cash flow and growth and that stopped where it was. And there was  literally no work in 2020, because what we do is new opportunities, new spaces  and everybody retreated back to00:15:57:12 - 00:15:59:19EllieNo one was going anywhere!00:16:00:01 - 00:16:10:17Serdar PaktinExactly. Everybody was in their safe space and that's why we didn't have any  work. But now with the pandemic reasonably under control, apparently, and the  economy is going somewhere.[LAUGHS]00:16:11:23 - 00:16:14:16EllieThe economy is doing something, who knows?00:16:16:13 - 00:16:17:10Serdar PaktinDefinitely!00:16:17:10 - 00:16:17:18Ellie[LAUGHS]00:16:17:18 - 00:16:45:14Serdar PaktinOur next two years will be getting back on track and growing in the UK and  hopefully growing our team here and doing more cultural work on a broader  regional and cultural framework. We are still mostly doing the Islamic markets but  we want to extend beyond that and that's one of our main goals to get projects  going beyond regional cultures and also going into different subcultures.00:16:45:14 - 00:17:04:16Serdar PaktinAnd not only discovering the culture but also imagining a future in those cultures.  How are things going to be meaningful towards the future? And discovering those  cultural spaces, that's going to be more meaningful in the following five to ten  years. More into connecting futures with cultural analysis and mashing up a  methodology out of that?00:17:05:01 - 00:17:07:08EllieWhat? Almost predicting trends that there may be?00:17:07:24 - 00:17:22:07Serdar PaktinIt's not really predicting trends, but it's more like a personalised meaningful area  discoveries towards the future. It's more than what's going to be meaningful, what's  going to be meaningful for you as a client or as an actor in that space.00:17:22:19 - 00:17:33:02EllieExciting times coming up. Serdar, thank-you so much for being on the podcast. It's  been really eye opening in a part of agency life that I really haven't given much  thought to. So thank you so much for sharing that with us.00:17:33:14 - 00:17:39:14Serdar PaktinThank you for inviting me and all these great questions, because I wouldn't be able  to explain them otherwise without your questions.00:17:39:17 - 00:17:40:09EllieMy pleasure.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC About Ape GroupApe Technology Solutions are a digital solutions agency based in Lasham, Alton, providing digital marketing, IT architecture, and web design and development services to organisations.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC About 303303 is a creative-focussed digital marketing agency that helps premium direct to consumer businesses to create and amplify their brand.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC About SookioSookio, is an award-winning Cambridge digital marketing agency founded in 2008 by Sue Keogh, who spent the early part of her career creating web content for the BBC, ITV.com, Magic FM, Yahoo, and AOL.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC About Pitch 121Pitch121 is a social selling service. They nurture your future clients, like you, at scale, growing your network and starting conversations that convert. Through thorough targeting, they make sure every single conversation is with your potential ideal client.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long-lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Trendy GrandadTrendy Grandad are a creative agency that creates content for corporate business that want to be trendy,

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Long Live KingLong Live King are focused on making the web sustainable, reducing energy waste, and contributing to a healthier planet. We’re building efficient web platforms to sustainably support and drive forward companies with purpose.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Niche Website BuildersEstablished in December 2019, Niche Website Builders is an affiliate marketing agency, helping people build profitable content sites.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Tigerfish PR'A specialist logistics and manufacturing PR agency, we spread the good word about the work that you do.With over 25 years experience in the B2B PR, Tigerfish has a wealth of knowledge about reputation management. We have worked with over 80 brands since Tigerfish PR was founded in 2001 and we're on a mission to get businesses out of stealth mode. As we all know, if people don't know about you; they can't buy from you.We work with your team as a sounding board and to create cracking ways for you to communicate with your customers, staff and potential customers.'

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About MoreverMorever is a creative agency specialising in creative communications and visual storytelling. They've partnered with healthcare providers and charities like Greenpeace, Tommy's and GHIT to produce film and animation.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About CircusJay founded Circus with his wife Jo in 2010, after spending 7 years on the road working with National Geographic Magazine. Being an agency founder has turned out to be an even bigger adventure, and Circus are now award-winning content creators, specialising in using immersive media to create virtual brand experiences. 

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About GlowWoman Business Owner of the Year in 2019, Lisa co-founded Glow in 2000 and built it into a thriving design agency. A former national marketing manager for global professional services firm Deloitte, Lisa combines hands-on leadership skills with strategic marketing and business acumen. A strong project manager, with a Business Studies degree form the leading business school, Kingston University, Lisa is a passionate believer that stand out designs, marketing and technology increases profit.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Sound RebelSound Rebel is a podcast production company in Liverpool. They've spent over a decade producing radio shows for Europe’s biggest commercial radio group and we now produce professional podcasts for clients in the North West and remotely across the UK. 

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About FountainFountain is a global award-winning digital agency that uncovers growth opportunities at every stage of your marketing funnel.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About FigmentFigment is a digital marketing agency specialising in personalised SEO services. Since becoming established in 2006, Figment has grown to become one of the top ranked and most highly rated SEO agencies.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Nobody's CaféNobody’s Café is a diverse group of creators, freelancers and suppliers ready to help you utilise the power of creativity to deliver deeply engaging campaigns. From brands to agencies, in person or virtually, each vision is unique and they’re passionate about bringing that vision to life.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About The HouseThe House are a branding and communications agency that helps organisations tell their story in the most compelling way. They are strategic thinkers who use design, technology and business expertise to build brand identities through film, animation, web, mobile and print.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Unity & MotionUnity & Motion is a full-service production company, providing content strategy and end-to-end content delivery for global brands.

Meet The Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about The AC------About Digital FireflyFrom strategy and training to content creation and consultation, Digital Firefly helps clients to build meaningful relationships with using well thought out content that delivers true return on investment

Meet the Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about the AC------About Managed LanguageManaged Language provides end-to-end, and completely bespoke translation and transcreation services spanning 36 languages.

Meet the Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about the AC------About Untapped DigitalBased in London and working with businesses around the globe, Untapped is a specialist social media agency with one goal: to ensure your business cuts through the noise in the overwhelmingly busy world of social and comes out on top.

Episode NotesMeet the Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about the AC------About The Animation Guys:The Animation Guys are a London based studio offering a range of animation services. That might look like a global advertising campaign set in 3D animation. Or a motion graphics tutorial video. Or a 2D animation for your Instagram page. So long as there’s a story to tell, they'll help you tell it.

Meet the Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about the AC------About ecce:ecce is a digital agency based in Kent, developing beautiful websites and helping clients bring their websites to life.

Meet the Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about the AC------About 23 Digital:23 Digital uses the latest film, image capture and simulation technologies to tell visual stories. They are masters of emerging technologies in visual communication, from filmmaking to virtual reality, drone scanning to timelapse. These incredible techniques are then used to create uniquely compelling and immersive stories for clients in many sectors, putting 23 Digital at the forefront of Industry 4.0. They see the tech's full potential to engage people and achieve powerful business results, like enhanced training, streamlined project planning and better marketing. 

Meet the Agency Collective:The Agency Collective is a peer support community for agency owners. It's a safe place to talk about your challenges openly – when you need the help most. It provides an opportunity for you to build new long lasting relationships with people who can provide support and leads for future work.Find out more about the AC------About Pollenary:Pollenary's purpose is to increase profit for direct-to-consumer brands with full-funnel marketing. Pollenary manages over £2M in ad spend annually across a number of different channels, and have developed a method that builds momentum, insights, and profit.Pollenary also co-hosts, and sponsors Facebook Ads Meetup London, a regular meet-up for Facebook experts.

Susi & Katrin set up Smoke Creatives to explore how value driven organisations can communicate more effectively with audiences. Working across sectors, their cultural approach to marketing pinpoints the right customer experience for clients and delivers results across engagement, sales and brand loyalty.

About Bearded FellowsBearded Fellows is an animation and video agency for brands, agencies and organisations. They bring together the expertise and unique perspectives needed to realise great ideas and produce stunning and exciting campaigns. The team's purpose is to grow and develop a network that encourages empathy, creativity and collaboration with a vision to create beautiful content that people enjoy watching.

SQN, an award-winning integrated marketing communications agency working in tech sport and automotive. We use the power of sponsorship to help our clients drive revenues, build relationships and enhance their reputations globally with their key audiences. We work with some of the worlds’ largest brands such as Toyota and Hyundai but many smaller, challenger brands too.

In this episode we speak to Gavin Willis - founder of the PPC agency Search Seven. They are based in Brighton. They are a 'profit for good' type business and their mission lies in their name. Listen to the podcast to find out why. Also check out their #share77k initiative: https://www.searchseven.co.uk/share77k/

In this episode we speak to Simon Lucey - the founder of student marketing agency Hype Collective. This time of the year is usually the busiest for universities with 1000s of events to attract potential students - however COVID has had a massive impact on the higher education sector. Simon and his  agency had to adapt quickly within his niche. We talk about their product innovation and how he found ways to keep his agency pushing forwards.

In this episode we speak to James Hakesley - co-founder of Cube Video. An award winning video production, animation and photography studio. They believe the best way to tell a story online, is through beautiful, relatable, insightful and compelling content that resonates with your target audience. For more information about The Agency Collective: www.theagencycollective.co.uk

In this episode we speak to Jenny Stanley the founder Appetite Creative - a creative technology agency. With a team of 23 people across three offices in the UK, Spain and Madrid - she is used to travelling 4-5x a week. However due to the current situation and the quarantine strictness in Spain, Jenny has had to shift like many of you to a purely remote working model.Topics we cover in this episode:Starting your agency with a 3 year old and the added drive to succeed that comes with thatRunning offices from another countryCommunication of teams in three different locationsRelationship with employees friends vs. managerCreating a diverse workforceFor more information about The Agency Collective: www.theagencycollective.co.uk

For more information about The Agency Collective: www.theagencycollective.co.uk

For more information about The Agency Collective: www.theagencycollective.co.uk

For more information about The Agency Collective: www.theagencycollective.co.uk

For more information about The Agency Collective: www.theagencycollective.co.uk