Jan 27, 2020Say “Hello” to AgencyNXDIn 2015 I left Latitude, an agency I’d been a part of for twelve and a half years. In fact, my entire career at that point was in the agency world. As well as a thrilling detour as Head of Tech North, I found myself falling into the Non-Exec/Advisory world…Agency4 min readAgency4 min read
Feb 7, 2019Award entries — the judges’ dilemmaI’ve judged a number of awards in the digital sector over the years and thought I’d share one of the over-arching challenges encountered in the process. Now…before you say it, judging a good awards event is actually a lot of work. I’m sure there are some events where the winners…Awards2 min readAwards2 min read
Jan 14, 2019How profitable is your agency?While recently discussing ideal profit margins, I was reminded of this simple doodle from Comms professional Stephen Waddington: While it was designed with a PR business in mind I’d venture to say it is the ideal model for most mature agencies. Indeed, there’s no escaping the fact that agencies…Agency3 min readAgency3 min read
Dec 6, 2018Why are agencies great catalysts for tech companies?Over the years I’ve noticed a few agencies that created tech products and then span them out as a separate business. Last week I took to Linkedin to see how wide-scale an occurrence this actually was. As you’ll see, we rapidly came up with the following list of businesses…and that’s…Agency2 min readAgency2 min read
Nov 1, 2018Focus, focus, focusI’ve recently found myself talking about focus, again and again, like the proverbial broken record, so I thought I’d capture three ways that you can increase the focus in your business. Strategy “If everything is important, nothing is important.” — anon Visions, missions statements and corporate objectives, often evolve into…3 min read3 min read
Aug 29, 2018What’s it like being a Non-Exec Director?Two and a half years ago I signed on for my first Non Exec Director (NED, or NXD if you’re cool…I’m not) position, as Chairman of Ruler Analytics. Since then I’ve worked with a number of agencies and tech companies in a similar capacity. I often get asked about the…Non Executive Director3 min readNon Executive Director3 min read
Jul 16, 2018Channel marketing — friend or foe?I had the pleasure of catching up with Channel Marketing expert, Stewart Townsend , last week and thought I’d share some of my/our takeaways. But why was I even discussing channel marketing? Back in my Latitude days, we created a search product for SMEs that was white-labelled for partners with…3 min read3 min read
May 23, 2018Do you really need an office?While not as popular as my “ greener grass” post, this month’s pondering about the need for an office drew a fair amount of commentary. We’ve seen headlines like the following in the US: After Growing to 50 People, We’re Ditching the Office Completely: Here’s Why The company behind WordPress…2 min read2 min read
Apr 19, 2018Greener grass syndrome — retaining young talentFollowing a number of conversations with agency owners and tech companies, where the subject of junior staff retention came up repeatedly, I took to LinkedIn with the following post: I really appreciate the comments and wanted to pull out the ones which stood out the most. While the post was…Agency2 min readAgency2 min read
Mar 18, 20167 essential reads for the agency MDMost business leaders know that lifelong learning is an essential habit for personal development but in an industry where the majority of our learning will most likely come from online sources, I still believe there are some books that deliver incredible knowledge. I’ve always been a voracious reader and in…Agency4 min readAgency4 min read
