Harry Fielder @ Umi Digital

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