Building a Better Agency
Lessons on Agency Life from #TDSessions
A Spring evening on the Newcastle quayside was the location of our second ‘Thinking Digital Sessions’ event — kindly powered by Generator — called ‘The Agency Hustle’.
At Thinking Digital we’re big fans of digital agencies and wanted to bring together 3 great agency founders to tell their “warts & all” stories about building their respective companies.
By 6pm the Live Theatre was filled with the cream of the crop of North East agency and digital scene. After a few pre-event drinks we settled into hear from three agency leaders with very different, and on occasion somewhat similar stories of their journey through agency-land.
- Kate Ross — MD, Eight and Four
- Julian Leighton — CEO, Orangebus
- Tony Foggett — CEO, Code Computer Love
All three stories were compelling, personal, fun, and all had many lessons and tips to get the post event conversation flowing.
Below we’ve shared a single nugget of information from each speaker to whet your appetite:
Kate Ross — Eight and Four
- When it comes to retention, sometimes you need to use your human head over your business head. Kate Ross retold a story of a team member who was having a particularly hard personal time, and learned a big lesson about giving people the time and space they need to return to work. Of course everybody will say ‘relationships matter’, but none so more than in the agency world, be it selecting the best clients to work with or putting an arm around a valued member of staff in their time of need, Kate Ross certainly showed that ‘good guys’ can win.
Julian Leighton — Computer Code Love
- You can get too close to your business — Tony Foggett discussed the ups and downs of his 18 year ‘love story’ with his agency and surmised that taking time to reflect on your business and your processes can show you the ‘what’ and ‘how’ need to change. In taking time to develop himself as a leader he has been able to deal with each crisis in their many guises across the years. “You’ve got to stop trying to manage everything and focus on creating the right environment and vision”
The irony of agency life is that each success it sets up your next crisis of growth. — Tony Foggett
Julian Leighton — Orangebus
- It can be hard to grow through organic profit alone, you can look at outside investment. Julian discussed a real turning point for Orangebus was being able to have the freedom to be more selective with their clients as a result of a VC loan. Being able to step away from clients that take all your time and attention for little to no reward allows you to focus on your current (and future) high value relationships and clients.
What’s Next?
Our next event will be #TDC17 at The Sage, Gateshead. We’re very nearly sold out so you’ll have to move fast if you’d like to join 500+ of the UK’s brightest minds at our tenth anniversary annual conference.
Find out more about the event and we hope to see you there.
