SPEAKER_02 0:00

I charge the same as the best search agency in Europe as a small startup of two of us in Sheffield. From the way we taught the brand we've built, they see us as the enterprise higher cost kind of option.

SPEAKER_05 0:11

You hit 1.8 million dollars in revenue year one. You launched Rise at 7 in 2019. What was the secret behind that explosive? Very quick, bro.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

I found a massive gap of applying creativity within SEO. When it comes to my niche, creativity in SEO was not really a thing, and that's what made us different. We had 100% close rate. If you can learn to sell, you can do anything.

SPEAKER_05 0:31

Why were you so good at bouncing for 100% close rate?

SPEAKER_02 0:34

I had an insane level of confidence about myself. I sell everything with my heart, I'm not doing anything less than bad random. You're either really cheap and you beat on price, or you're really expensive and you beat on quality. I think the ones in the middle are the ones that you see die really fast. You just need to walk into a room and be able to say a million pounds without finishing. Trust me, in five years' time you'll regret that because you'll be trying to shake off the cheap brand. I think agency owners, it's all in confidence.

SPEAKER_05 0:57

If you were to start again as a founder today, what's the first thing that you're gonna do? Carrie? Hello. Welcome to Agency Giants. So you launched Rise at Seven in 2019.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I did.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

You hit $1.8 million in revenue year one. Yeah. What was the secret behind that explosive, very quick growth?

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Um there's not much of a secret. I've definitely shared this crazy story of Jamie, but um I think you know, hitting $1.8 million in our first year was very unheard of. We had a target of $300,000, to be transparent. We thought $300,000 is a safe number in year one, right? Um and to give you context, if anyone knows like social chain, social chain did $1.4, I think, in their first year. So it shows you the scale, right? Because I remember looking up social chain thinking, wow, fast growth, like it was doing some amazing work. And it was, you know, a bit of an idolized moment that, yeah, we we grew at that pace. The secret, if I'm completely honest, is during the first year of business, we took on everything we possibly could. And I had a co-founder at the time, and we had two very distinct roles. I went out and grabbed the revenue, I threw it over the wall and he caught it. He delivered on it. And it was very clear that I was there, throw it over the wall for him to catch. And he created this confidence in me and the structure in me where I did not look left, right, backwards, or anything. I constantly looked forwards to the point where I didn't even know they're logged into our bank account. So I had no idea how much money we were making. I just went out and got it. And I think so many business owners, especially in their first year, spend most of their time looking backwards, checking, you know, are we making money on this? Are we doing that? And I know it's like a you have to be safe and protect the margin and protect the business. But I didn't look once. I did, I just constantly look forward. I didn't compare ourselves to anybody. I didn't look at competitors, I didn't look at, well, how are they structuring themselves, how are they positioned? I just focused on looking ahead. Um and I think that's what drove like insane growth, if that makes sense. Um and that level of confidence came from having a co-founder at the time for sure. And we also had a little bit of investment. So I had one of my clients at the time, one of my number one client, the first client we ever won, um offered us a small, very small amount of investment just to give me the confidence to not have to check the bank account kind of thing. Um it bought us a few laptops and it bought me one member of staff and that's it. Um, but it helped. Um, so yeah, I think that level of confidence I had and not having to compare myself in the industry allowed us to grow at that pace.

SPEAKER_05 3:30

Do you think that you found a gap in the market?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Oh, huge. Um I think agencies are fighting two battles. You're either fighting the data battle, like I've got bigger and better data than you, or the creativity battle, we're more creative than you. And I found that I would never be able to beat the data battle. I don't have massive data houses, data banks, I don't have budgets to go behind some of the biggest tech and tools. I'm never going to beat the performance agencies. But the thing I could be is more creative than them. And essentially, when it comes to my niche, um, creativity in SEO was not really a thing. Um, SEO has always been a technical discipline. So I think I found a massive gap of applying creativity within SEO, and that's what made us different. Um, there was a certain part of SEO as well that at the time was not necessarily a big growing side of it, and it was called digital PR. Um, and it was uh a digital form of doing PR essentially, which impacts like algorithms. Um, and I made much my goal was go be famous in that, go be absolutely famous in digital PR, my land products. That was my land product. And then I expand in SEO content social in in other ways. Um so yeah, so that was my gap is applying creativity into a niche that has never really seen creativity before, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

Yeah, it does make sense. I want to unpack the kind of the service like shortly and then dive into some client acquisition stuff as well. But just for the purpose of people that might not have heard of you before who are watching this, I d can you build some context on bringing you up to the point of launching the agency? Had you had agency experience prior?

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Yeah, so I worked in one of the best SEO agencies in Europe. I was so proud to work there. It was an agency called Branded Three. They ended up selling and they don't exist anymore. They sell or sold on for many, many millions. Um, but I I worked there as a junior exec and I progressed up to a what I was called a campaign strategist. Um, I was running accounts like LabRox, Go Compare. Um so I was I got exposure to some huge brands and huge budgets at such a young age. I was like 21, 22, 23. Um, so yeah, I've worked agency side all of my life since I graduated. And I think what I ended up doing is I was the type of kid that went and sat on every table asking quite a million questions. Like I'd sit with the SEO team, the the dev team, the paid team, and I was quite annoying, like constantly, why why do we do this or why do we do that? How do you how do you figure this out? But I think it allowed me to learn how to run an agency really, really fast. Um so I launched my own at 25. I was 25 when I started Rise, which is crazy. Yeah, that's right. Um so yeah, so I've always worked ANC side um and you know had amazing exposure to different brands.

SPEAKER_05 5:54

There came a point though in working in the agency that you thought, you know, screw it, I can do better. Yeah. Or maybe there's an opportunity. Did you always think that you were gonna jump into like starting your own thing, or did it was there like this moment where you were like, oh, I just want to do something by myself.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

If I'm honest, I I always knew I was gonna do something, but I didn't ever imagine it was gonna be an agency. I um strangely, there was a there was a director at Brandy III called Stephen Cameron. So he ended up becoming the co-founder of Rise of 7. But that director kind of took me under his wing a little bit, and he taught me the ropes of sales, actually. He was like, if you can learn to sell, you can do anything. So he basically used to take me to pitches at 21 years old, and I used to just sit and listen to everything he said. And I ended up going to these pitches with him and pitching myself at a young age, and we had 100% close rate. So whenever me and him went together, he had this role he played, and I had a role I played, and we had 100% close rate. And it was mad, it was like this little thing that we had. So um I ended up learning how to sell really fast, and I realized, to be honest, in business, all you gotta do is sell. You'll learn to sell. Um, I could do the doing, I spent all my career doing the doing. But if you can sell it, then yeah, you've got you've got a business idea here. So yeah, it was a very kind of random act of creativity of thinking, yeah, I can start an agency. And there's a a separate side of this of where I applied for the apprentice, the TV show. Um I never got on. Um I I got through to the final, I got an offer from um Lord Sugar, but I declined it because he wanted 50%. Um, but yeah, it was just a m a mad act of creativity of okay, let's go start an agency. And it, yeah, and it ended up just happening.

SPEAKER_05 7:28

That's interesting. What do you think maybe gave you to that sales edge? Why why were you so good bouncing off 100% close rates and stuff?

SPEAKER_02 7:34

I know, yeah, it's insane. Um I am just genuine. I I sell everything with my heart. Um he I'm I'm a very good uh dreamer. I'm a dreamer, I'm a Pisces, so it that's why I do I dream. And I can help peop people visualize like what a campaign could look like. I'm a very good at like telling stories. So I think I was kind of what you call an opener, and Steven was a closer. So I think having that between us was um a really good partnership, I think, of learning how to open conversation, how to get people to you know, dream what a campaign could look like, and then pass it on to him to go and close it. So yeah, I think that's what I learned at a young age.

SPEAKER_05 8:11

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:12

I've seen you say that you think being a first-time founder in the agency was an unfair advantage for you. Like why is that?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah, yeah, it was. Um I think there is many books on how to run an agency, there's many processes of how to run an agency. Um, but sometimes, especially in today's world, um you have to just see what works. And I just did it my way. And there were so many times, if I'm completely honest with you, where I've hired consultants and I've hired people that have been in agencies 30 plus plus years, and they've come in and told me this is how you should do things, and it slowed me down. I've made less profit, and I wasn't doing great work. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm going back to what I know works. Um, and yeah, I think it was an unfair advantage the fact that I hadn't done it before because I was not afraid to try things. Um, you know, I'm I'm a type of founder, if I'm completely honest with you, that loves restructures. I love a restructure. I love change because I love figuring out the very small things you can do to make things w work more efficiently or work faster or make more money. So yeah, I think it was a a good thing the fact I hadn't done this before because I was open to failing and failing fast. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 9:19

Yeah, absolutely. Were there any moments where you thought you would fail in the early stages?

SPEAKER_02 9:24

No. No. I had an insane level of confidence about myself. Um, and I don't know if it's because I'm a girl that's come from nothing, so I didn't have anything to lose, so I didn't have any fear of failure. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

So I was I was it was never something that went through my mind. If I'm honest with you, there was a moment where I remember when the pandemic hit. We were 10 months in. So 10 months into building an agency, pandemic hit. And at the time we all got told didn't wait two weeks. Two weeks we'll all go home. We were like, ooh, now I need to work from over two weeks. And we had about 11 job ads live. And I remember saying to the co-founder at the time, should should we take them down? So that was a slight hint of ooh, I could fail here. Like, should we put things on pause? Like, what if you know things go backwards? And I remember ringing my mum saying, Mum, I'm about to do a mill revenue. Like, what if the pandemic takes everything away? Like, we've done so good in 10 months. So there was a little moment of fear, a fear of failure, but and that was because of the pandemic. But I do remember at the time Stephen Kem Wright, um, if I slip flick between Stephen and Ken Wright's because I call him Ken Wright. Um, so Ken Wright, he said, no, keep the job as live, go, go, go. So I was like, okay, and then yeah, it it worked. So yeah, slight little moment of fear, but um overall I've I've I have an insane level of confidence about myself and also my team and Stephen at the time. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:48

Did uh did COVID, I mean, initially I know for a lot of agencies it was like a bit of a shocker and there was like this disruption, people lost clients, but then did it end up being a really positive thing in the end?

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Oh, it was huge for me. Like huge. I actually, yeah. Um I won, so there were so many retail brands that we won during the pandemic, um, from game who sell like Xbox PlayStation, we won Kath Kidson, um, who else did we win? All of the fashion brands, beauty brands, because the only way for them to survive was online. So there was demand there, right? People still bought things during the pandemic. People have more money than ever before. Um, and my job was just to capture that intent, capture the demand that was already existing. So SEO was huge, to be honest. So I think we positioned ourselves really well where um, you know, we was a this fast-growing agency that was winning all the we won fast, no, we won best large agency in our first year. We didn't even win best small agency. Best large agency. Yeah, we didn't even win best small agency. Like we were just won best large. We won, we grew that fast. Um, and I think that momentum behind us was what got everybody watching. Like we had thousands of followers within our first year, which is mad. Who follows an agency account? Do you know what I mean? But I think it was the fast pace of growth, the pandemic, the momentum we had. But I love momentum. Momentum's the hardest thing to ever get. So the fact I got it for free in our first year, I rode it like crazy. So yeah, it was it was wild.

SPEAKER_05 12:08

That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Tactically speaking, like looking at that growth then, what did early stage client acquisition look like? You said, like, you got clients like Calf Kidson and Xbox or Game and so on. Like, would were those all inbound from existing relationships? Like, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

100% inbound. Um, so we had no sales team for three years. First three years of rights and we had not one salesperson.

SPEAKER_05 12:27

You were closing?

SPEAKER_02 12:28

I was, yeah, closing. Um so the sales and the tactic of acquisition, if I'm completely honest with you, was um value exchange. If I can be out in the market, talking on stage, in meetings with clients and educating them about the world, because the world of search was constantly changing and the pandemic, everybody just needed advice. So I put myself a lot out there and said, I'm going out in the market, and you guys need to catch it. So um, yeah, education. I stood on stage and educated clients and customers, and I ended up winning loads of accounts for it. Um, 70% in our first two years of our clients were recommendations, which is huge. Um, people saying you should work with these guys. Um, and I think ultimately it was purely brand. We built a brand, we built, you know, good track history of performance. Um, so yeah, it was all inbound at the time.

SPEAKER_05 13:16

Something I preach a lot to with agency owners is building that stage presence and having the ability to talk at events. Many people always have the objection of all it's easier than done. How do I get onto this good stage, this big stage, and so on? What did that process look like for you? Presumably had a little bit of credibility, well, a lot of credibility from the previous company that you worked in.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:36

Was it stepping stones on smaller stages than much larger? Like, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_02 13:39

It was really interesting because essentially I didn't have a brand presence myself. I was quite young junior, you know, um, to kind of build a nipple in my career, whereas Kemright, he had a presence. So um he actually ended up taking a step back on the stage presence and basically say you go. And I was like, Are you sure? And he was like, Yeah, and I was like, How do I do this? Where do I apply? Um and I started um I started medium. I didn't ever start small. It's one thing I I was net like there's this saying like I want to win big and other people want to lose small, like I want to win big. So I was like, I'm not going small, I'm going straight in. So I went kind of like pitched myself on stage. You know, you have to do a lot of pictures of this is what I want to talk about. And the way I got on stage was giving everything I knew away. And there was a risk there, right? Because if I'm honest with you, 80% of the audience is other agencies, they're writing down everything I said. And I remember every every time I made a statement, and this is how I do things. This is literally a screenshot of the way I do my process. Um, everyone's taking pictures, you know, writing it down. So that's the risk I put at play of everybody copying me. But I've learned that the majority of people in the room go home feeling inspired, but they don't actually act on it. Um, so what I needed is that 20% of people in the room that was client-side, that was listening and thought, oh my gosh, she knows what she's doing. She just literally told me how she does it. And then I got a phone call. So that's literally the the story of our first client. Um, I was stood on stage, I I pitched to Brighton SEO. So Brighton SEO was the one of the biggest in our in our niche. And usually you have to pay to get on stage, but I was this young 25-year-old. I've just started an AC, I've got loads to give away. I'm gonna give my give away my secrets. So I got on for free. And I stood on stage and I presented, you know, this is how I run my campaigns from start to end. And in the audience was the digital guy at Misguided, and we got an email to say, I've just seen you talk on stage, and you were like, incredible. I'm gonna be honest with you, we've just done a pitch process with selected an agency, but we haven't signed the contract yet, it's going through illegal right now. You've got 48 hours to get yourself to Manchester with your team to steal the contract. I was like, I don't have a team, it was just me and Ken right. And I was like, I've got to get to Manchester with a team to steal this contract for Misguided for UK and US massive fashion brand at the time. What the hell do I do? Um, and yeah, I ended up calling up some friends and said, I need you to pretend to be staff. Get yourself in Manchester with me on Monday, we're going to pitch, and they came. They came. And these were friends that I've known in the industry. And I I I went to this pitch, and it was the probably the best pitch of my life. And I was honest with the digital director who sat to the left of me and I said, I'm gonna be honest with you. You see, these people in the room, they're like, Yeah, they don't work for me. But I said, Um, if I win this, I'm gonna hire them tomorrow because he's the best I've ever worked with and he's the smartest guy I know, and they loved it. They love and we we won it. We won the contract.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Yeah, so we stole it off um IPG, big network, and I was a small little agency, you know, um, and it was a global contract, 120 grand, massive for me. Massive. Um, so yeah, so that was that was uh day one of Riot Seven, what we did.

SPEAKER_05 16:36

Paint a picture of what that kind of pitch processor looks like because for an agency that's never worked with that caliber of client before. Like how long is the meeting? What does the structure look like?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, so a good pitch, you want a good pitch about an hour and a half. Um anything longer is too long, anything shorter, you probably don't get enough value in there. Um, but really what you're doing is you're not selling yourself. A lot of people go in there, agencies go in there with a pitch creds deck of this is who we are, this is how many awards we've won, this is how many offices we have, and you know, all these credentials. I don't talk about me. The first 30 slides, nothing to do with me. The first 30 slides has to be everything to do about them. Because ultimately, you don't say that you're great, you show that you're great. So I basically was like, this is everything I know about misguided, where where the opportunity lies. Here's some little like quick wins, and here's some you know strategic things we're gonna do over the next few years, and here's a banger of a creative idea at the end of it, get them inspired. So, yeah, so that's typically how I run my pitches. Um, and yeah, that's probably all got the 100% win rate back in the day. We ha I haven't still got that, so it's definitely, but it gets harder now, right? I'm going for bigger budgets now and I'm up against the big players. Um, so yeah, but that's the that's the tactics. Love that.

SPEAKER_05 17:44

Are you still completely inbound? Did you ever introduce an outbound element to the business?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Six months ago.

SPEAKER_05 17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

And I'm only six years. So I'm six years old. Um, and six months ago we introduced outbound. Um, it's getting there. It's not as you with outbound, you have to go mass, right? You send in thousands of contacts. The good thing is we're we're doing it two pro two kinds of fold. We're building a great brand with great case studies, um, and we're also doing really smart outbound strategy so that when we're in the DMs of people, we don't need to go out in cold. They've kind of already seen us, they've heard about us, or they've seen that report we did last week, or they saw someone of our team stood on stage in LA last week. Like they kind of know about us in some way. So I think if you tie outbound with building a great brand and brand awareness, and I don't think any agencies don't build brand, by the way. And that's the the secret behind Rise of 7 is we've built an amazing brand that makes sales easy, faster, and we we convert cheaper. Um so yeah, so we started doing outbound six months ago and it it's getting there. I think we're learning what works for us as an agency that's built off inbound for the last six years.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

So how do you think, or what do you think is the best way to build trust with these big CMOs and and brand leaders?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Um value exchange again. So with our outbound, there's nothing in that email about us. It's everything about them. Oh, by the way, we've seen that you're behind in this when we've looked into some data around SEO or whatever it is, we usually send them some insight. We've worked in your space before. We did we sell or solve this exact problem for your competitor. Here's a here's a download if you want to see it. And like, you know, if what we did, leave it. Just give them value exchange. Um, nothing about us, and that's probably the best tactics in there. Um so yeah, that that's how we kind of approach things.

SPEAKER_05 19:31

Nice. And are you quite bullish on personal brand ofin the business as well?

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Um, I was. I've gone on a journey. I've gone on a journey with personal brand. Um, I'll tell you some stories. So I I value personal brand massive because Stephen came right, he had a really big personal brand and I didn't. And he basically was like, you go on stage, you go build your brand. And you know, I'm nearly 100,000 followers on LinkedIn, which is good for LinkedIn, right? Um and it's got to a point where I get invited to stage and get paid to talk now, right? And um, it helps my business massively. Like I think, you know, I would say a good solid 60% of revenue that comes in every single year is down to not just my personal brand, but my team's personal brand. However, I think in the first three years, a lot of people, it was new back then, um, but a lot of people jumped onto it and wanted to build their personal brand. So they joined Rise at Seven because they wanted to build their personal brand, not because they wanted to build Rise at Seven. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

And I found the ways in that they worked is they would do a piece of work for them, not for a client. And whoa, whoa, you're doing it. We're getting paid thousands for you to be client-centric. You have to think about the client first because the personal brand comes secondary. Do great work, become famous for it, right? Rather than become famous and then do great work for yourself. So I think, yeah, I went on a journey of hiring these people, which was mostly about their ego and not about the business. And I just learned some lessons through that for sure. Um, so I try to, if people come into the business, I usually try to get them to focus on doing great work, focus on the client performance, and then go, hey, you've got some really interesting things to share now. Do you want me to help you build your network? Like we could start with blog posts, we could start with, you know, so I kind of build it up that way rather than leading with a personal brand first.

SPEAKER_05 21:11

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And your in but your personal Instagram is still a good pull-in for the business?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Um, not my Instagram. So I LinkedIn, sorry. LinkedIn, yeah, yeah. So LinkedIn and Twitter. Um, Instagram a little bit. I I think I used to use Instagram to kind of make people feel like they know me, right? As a human. Um, I am the same on Instagram versus LinkedIn. Literally, I'm the same person. Um and I think that's definitely a tactic to be that. Um, but I've actually started to go a bit more private on Instagram. I think it's just I'm 32, I want I I want to be a mum one day, you know, all these things. So I'm starting to kind of separate that life. Um, but yeah, LinkedIn is still massive for me, like huge. Um, and I I did bits on YouTube as well. So I YouTube in the first four years, I YouTube building the business. I had a lot of vlog.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Oh nice.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, yeah. And that won a lot of clients as well. Um so yeah, so I think creating content as a founder. Is insanely important. But I think as anybody knows that when you're scaling a business like mine, when it comes to selling one day, um you've got to be able to prove that the business doesn't rely on you. So um I think you have to think tactically about that over over a 10-year, 15-year period. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:16

The I just want to close off this kind of first year thing. The first year that 1.8 million in revenue, like what what kind of makeup is that of clients? Like how many clients are we talking over that period? Or are these like a few very large accounts, or is this like a large volume of clients initially?

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Oh, I can't remember off the top of my head, but as a rough guesstimate, um, our average retainer at the time is between five and seven grand. So whatever that, you know, a month. Um, so whatever that equates to. Um, so you're probably talking maybe 15 to 20 clients, I guess, with the odd one or two, three, 20 grand a month accounts. Um, so yeah, I think starting the agency, especially in my niche, there's agencies out there that are doing £800 a month clients, right? Or they might be doing two grand a month clients. Um, straight away I was like, I'm not doing anything less than five grand.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Um I charge the same amount as branded three of the best search agency in Europe, and as a small startup with two of us in Sheffield. And the reason I did that is because I was in no way gonna devalue who we are and what we do. A lot of people go into business thinking, right, I'm gonna be I'm gonna beat them because I'm gonna be cheaper. Trust me, in five years' time, you'll regret that because you'll be trying to shake off the cheap cheap brand. And from day one, I said, Oh no, I work at the best agency in Europe, so this is my charge and this is the fee, and it's the same amount as them. And the way I'm gonna win is because I'm better, I'm more creative than them. I'm better at them. So yeah, I think I went I went straight in with um, you know, five to seven K a month, and then I did have a couple of 20 grand 20 grand account, there's definitely there was a 25 grand account at the time a month. Um, so yeah, so it was it was a probably around 15 to 20 accounts, something like that.

SPEAKER_05 24:00

Yeah, nice. You've I heard you say that uh agencies in the middle die the fastest. Yeah. Why is that?

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I think um you're either really cheap, or you've done some research on me. Yeah, you've seen my LinkedIn. Um you're either um really cheap and you beat on price, or you're um really expensive and you beat on quality. And I think the ones in the middle are the ones that you see die really fast. I think it's because they just don't know who they are and who they're for. Um I think brands don't mind paying premium as long as they get premium. So being in the middle, you kind of it's just like any brand right now. You you see in fashion brands, beauty brands come and go really, really fast. And I think it's because they just sit in the middle ground. They're either really expensive or they're really cheap, and the ones that are in the middle just don't work. And I think that that's a sweeping statement, right? Um so I think there's so many industries where you can fit nicely in the middle, but I see commonly agencies that try to just be everyone for everything for everyone are the ones that usually fit off fastest, if that makes sense. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 24:59

Have you ever deliberately priced like above the general market and won a client?

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 25:04

Yeah. How did you get that client?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Um, how did I get that client? Someone once told me you just need to walk into a room and be able to say a million pounds without flinching. And I was like, I'm gonna try it.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Like, I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try walking to a room and say a million pounds without flinching and like look like, yeah, fair, she's a million pound. And it worked.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

And I think sometimes you have to know. I I've I'm gonna tell a story. We pitched a Lego once and we lost it. And you know what? They said, You're way too cheap. You've made yourself like shit. I was like, what? Fuck, we've lost Lego. And I thought we were pricey, I thought we were good price, but yeah, you've got to be able to imagine these are the budgets, and you know, we're working with the biggest brands in the world right now. We're we're the SEO agency behind Red Bull and Bumble, some amazing big brands. You've got to be able to stand up and say a price and also give really high quality work. That's the expectations. Um, so yeah, so it's it's interesting about how you judge which one do you go discounted on because you really want to win it, or which ones actually you need to have the confidence to say a big number because you're gonna look shit if you don't. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 26:15

It doesn't, and it's a very it's a painful place of being the exact place to sell money. I pitched prices that uh that were the biggest price I've ever pitched, and it was still way too low for the general market. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Yeah, yeah. It's hard to get right, but my little tips around pricing is um ask a million questions up front. I think not I and I also say, right, here's a range, but I think it's gonna come in between this and this. What does that sound? And they'll just tell you, no, we want double that. And you're like, okay, yeah, sound fair. So always, always I don't think people are afraid to talk about money, but I always do it. As we're having the intro calls, probably gonna come in about this, maybe this, it depends, you know, and then you'll start to see their reaction. And then you know, right, when we said that number, they was like, Yeah. So um, yeah, have early conversations about money.

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Are you going in with like a very specific this is when you're doing the final picture, this is what we're recommending, or are there a couple of different options on various different like to to expedite the process from a time perspective, for example? Like, what is the pricing strategy?

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, so we do whatever agency does and gives A, B, and C, you know, bronze, silver, silver, gold, whatever it is. Um however, I think we win when we say you should spend that. Like if you want to get to this, you should spend that. Um, and I my little trick I do is so you know, you can do option one, option two, option three, but if I were you, I'd I'd actually go with option two. Um I know I'm calling myself out of money here from option three, but actually I think the best thing for you right now is option two. And if I were you, I'd scale it up in six months to be option three in six months when we get hit this number. I think they just love honesty. Um so yeah, so we we price ourselves in in that way, but you've got to make sure that option three is way higher, by the way. Um option two, so say if it's like 10 grand, 14 grand, option three needs to be like 30 grand. You have to share option three to be like this is what the world could look like.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

Um like an anchor price.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Yeah. Um and sell the that that's the dream, right? For what you want to get to, but you have to show a journey of getting there.

SPEAKER_05 28:16

Do you think an agency can recover from being priced low in the market? And if so, how?

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Do I think they can? No. Well, it takes a lot. I think brands um big brands struggle, they're mind an agency. Pretty little thing, pretty little thing, fast fashion. They're trying to go into this luxury fashion now, they're just dying. Because everybody just knows them as that. Especially if they've got a history behind it. I think it depends how many years you've been going and and had this pricing structure behind you. If you, you know, two years in and you haven't necessarily got a big brand, yeah, you can start afresh, you can do what you want, you can, you know, rip up and start again, kind of thing. Um, but if you've been going, you know, 10 years and you've always had this kind of way of being the cheap agency, I think it's going to be very hard for you to shake off. I I have a friend who is a founder in this in in my space and he's been the cheap agency all of his life and he's just can't shake it off. Um, clients just don't go to him for that. It's interesting actually, because I've never put our prices online. Um, but there was an article recently in the industry saying if you want um enterprise level services, you should go to Rise at Seven. And I was and it said that you know they're probably not they're they're not the cheapest option, but I was thinking, how do they know that? Because I've never said it online. I've never I've never said what our prices are on our website or anything. But it's interesting from the way we talk, the but the brand we've built, they see us as the enterprise more high higher cost kind of option.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

Um I mean your brand presence reeks of of premium. I think it's a great brand presence. And I think that demonstrates through the website and everything. What do you think the answer is then? Rebranding as an agency if you've been in that in that position?

SPEAKER_02 29:53

I would.

SPEAKER_05 29:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Yeah, to start again.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

And I also don't think anyone should be afraid of that. Like it it's it yeah, it's it's fun. I think it's I I I if you've been going for that many years and you need to completely create create you you have to think about a new brand. Um so yeah, that's what I'd do.

SPEAKER_05 30:11

Being different is better than being better.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Oh, it's my favourite quote.

SPEAKER_05 30:14

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 30:16

There's you know, we all used to figure that out when we were younger, right? We're like, is it better to be better? Is it better to be different? Because everyone used to be, you know, if you were different at school, you'd get bullied for being different. It's better to be different every single time. And there's actually science behind this. So I studied studied psychology. Oh yeah, study some psychology stuff. So when we're born, our brains are very, very simple. Um, we think up, down, left, right, black, white, like we're very, very simple humans. Um, and what happens is when we see things going on TV, so take TV ads, and say if in you know, in between Coronation Street, there's eight ads. Um, if all of a sudden everybody does a similar ad, you know, like kind of talking about their product, you know, price or whatever it is, then you have one in eight chance. I'm not even gonna do A actually, because that's hard for maths. Um say if I have a hundred ads or something like that, you have a one in a hundred chance of being remembered, right? Whereas if all of a sudden someone does something completely different, like the ad is like, wait, what's that on TV? Or, you know, something completely different. Maybe it's a silent ad, or maybe it doesn't include people, you know, whatever, because something completely out there, then what happens is the brain buckets everyone that looked like this over here, and everyone that looked like this over here, and also in what you've got is 50% of the brain. So you're stealing 50% of the uh mental awareness essentially by being different. Um, and that's why I don't know if you ever saw the Coinbase ad. Was it Coinbase? Um, during the Super Bowl. Can you remember it? So Super Bowl, a couple of years ago, they basically did a QR code that just bounced around the screen. And it was for, I think it was Coinbase. And um obviously Super Bowl do these massive ads and it has like Rihanna and Beyonce and everything like that. They was like, no, we're not using a celebrity, we're just having a QR code that bounces around the screen. But it was the most um talked about out of the last decade. It had the most app downloads ever. It got to number one in app store because it stole 50% of them of the brain. People was like, that's different. And the thing is, being different is is always wins. So I make sure everything I do, I'm different. I want to line up against other SEO agencies and I don't want to stand out like a sort of thumb. Like when I talk on stage, I I have a different way of saying things. Sometimes I'm controversial, but I do that on purpose. I think being different is your advantage, and I think that's the thing you should lean towards. Um, if I ever feel like, oh my god, the industry's starting to talk like me, look like me, or catch up, then I I rebrand. And not full rebrand, but I do something to make me stand out.

SPEAKER_05 32:33

Love that.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:34

I had the opportunity to speak to Rory Sutherland this week on Tuesday. Um have you heard him speak about reverse benchmarking?

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Don't know.

SPEAKER_05 32:41

It's it's reverse benchmarking is a great concept for this. And it's just simply the concept that most people will look at, you know, the likes of yourself and think, how can I be like Rise at seven? Yeah. And instead think about what Rise at Seven don't do or do badly, and then do that thing exceptionally.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yeah, double down on it. Yeah, 100%. And and that's you know how I said before at the beginning of this podcast that the massive gap in the industry was that everyone was fighting the data battle. In SEO, everyone was fighting the data battle as well. And I nobody was good at creative, like, so I I doubled down on the thing everyone was shitter and just make myself famous for it. So yeah, I agree massively.

SPEAKER_05 33:16

How would you define then what makes Rise at seven different to your competition?

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Ooh, um it's interesting because obviously I'm biased. Like I I live in my agency every single minute of the day, and I can see what's different. But what I'm I'm trying to think then, what does the market know as as being different? I think SEO has always chased algorithms. You know, as technical people, we chase we try to manipulate Google's algorithms, TikTok algorithm, Amazon's algorithm, that's what we do. We try to manipulate algorithms. But I think Rise of 7, what we actually do is get in the mind of people. And I think not enough marketing gets in the mind of people. We're trying to just constantly hack stuff. And um someone very smart, Stephen Kemright, he said to me, Everyone's chasing Google, right? And I said, Yeah, we're literally spending our careers doing it. And he said, You know what though? He says, I think people aren't that smart. Um, Google's not that smart. Because what Google is actually doing is chasing humans. Humans are moving faster when it comes to their search behavior than anything else. Like we as humans are constantly evolving. We even make up our own terms, right? We make up our own ways of behaving. So Google's just trying to chase us. So rather than trying to chase Google, why don't we just chase people? Um, so I think that's what Rise 7 does really, really well is takes kind of traditional marketing, traditional advertising concepts and brings it into SEO. And I think nobody else does that. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 34:34

Yeah. You you mentioned owning terms then, and obviously you're speaking speaking on a lot of the stages. Uh, do you create your own unique mechanisms and and and speak about your unique methodology at Rise at seven? Do you think that differentiates you as well?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

I don't believe in making the complicated uh in making the symbol complicated. I think too many agencies make it too complicated. They create their own terms, they create their own propositions, tools, you know, ways, and and all that we're trying to do is say we all do the same thing, but we're just making it sound smarter. Um, there's a quote out there that basically says, stupid people think being complicated is clever. But smart people know you have to go beyond the complicated to get to simple. And you have to get to simple. So I actually try to simplify things, and I think that's what makes the agency better. Um I try not to create too many buzzwords or too many um unique propositions or you know, unique processes, because I just think it's just bullshit in agency. I think actually if you just keep it simple, it makes it easy to sell and easy to buy.

SPEAKER_05 35:29

Would you say that's one of the bigger mistakes that agencies make in positioning or and if not, what?

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Yeah, I think it's huge. Most agencies, you go on their website, you have no idea what they do. Like that's the I've gone through a journey on this because I don't know if you've seen, but in the last 12 months I rebranded the agency. It was, it was, it was uh more of a, you know, who are we? How do we? And it was based off a guy messaging me on LinkedIn and he said, Carrie, I love what you guys do. I've followed you since day one. I don't know if you remember this, but and he said, Um, I'm I'm obsessed with everything you guys do. But I'm just gonna be honest with you. I've been on your website like a hundred times. And he said, I still can't put my finger one way as a you do. And it lived rent-free in my head. I read that LinkedIn state like message and I couldn't sleep. I rang my colleagues, I was like, this, and I just sent this message today. I didn't even reply to him, bless him. I can't remember who said it. I need to go back to you. So thank you, did it? Because you changed everything for me. But I was on a train down to London, just rinsing my brain, thinking, come on, Carrie, what is it you're going wrong? Where are you going wrong? And I was looked at my website and I was like, what is it we do? We haven't, we're not clearly defining it in one sentence. So I yeah, rebranded of we create category leaders on every searchable platform, done. And it gives everybody, it's so interesting how fast the business picked it up first. That's the most important, how fast they picked up, we create category leaders on every searchable platform, and then how fast the market, the market. I saw a uh a director within a big beauty brand say, Oh, you know, we're trying to be the category leader in the in the st and I was like, no one's ever said that. I it that's from driven from our proposition. So yeah, so I um I think agencies overcomplicate things. Most people don't know what you do. I think you need to humanize who you are, make it simple. Um, but that's the hardest part to do, I think. It's that proposition part is the most unique, but the hardest part to do.

SPEAKER_05 37:15

Certainly difficult in the early stages when you don't even know what your true value to the market is yet.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Yeah, that's the hard thing. Um yeah. I've definitely but it's interesting actually, because if I was to print out um all of the ways that we our proposition to the world over the last six years, and if I was to print it out, there's definitely a journey and it's definitely expanded and got better. But it's all been centered in in something. Um and it's always been centered in creativity. So you know how we're fighting the data belt or the creative battle. Um so I that's the the anchor, I guess, that I've I've stuck to is because we can get distracted in fact the data belt. I even mentioned it as I walked in about maybe one day we'll be a big performance agency. But I'm like, no, stick to what you're great at. Do you know what I mean? I think we we we get distracted as founders, so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:02

Yeah, there's always some other shiny authenticity.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

That make could make us loads of money, but it could also make you really complicated and also, you know, lose passion and lose lose the culture of the business.

SPEAKER_05 38:11

Have you had one of those rabbit holes you've gone down that's kind of taking you off course temporarily?

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yes, I have. Um I'm a I'm a uh what's the word? Um move fast, fail fast person. So um within a few months, max two months, I realised now it's wait, this is taking up too much of my time and it's not gonna get the return. Um I saw this concept of rather, you know, my job is to get the media, and media for me is social media, it's it's you know, publications, it's media on Google and things like that, is which all trying to steal the space of that media, right? But rather than trying to get the media to talk about us, why don't I own the media? So I started building out my own media sites and I realized fuck this is gonna be hard, it's gonna take so much time. Um so that was my big distraction.

SPEAKER_05 38:56

That's a lofty goal, and that's it. Oh, it is, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Let's own the media. I thought, you know, that's the way to get your multiple up. Um, but yeah, I think it is a you can easily get distracted as founders, but I think you've got to be smart to know when you're going down the wrong wrong path.

SPEAKER_05 39:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Um and just cut it straight out.

SPEAKER_05 39:12

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:14

So obviously you've you've grown at over 100% year-on-year growth over the years.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Yeah. Oh my God, it was it was probably more than that in the first four years. Um currently we're doing about 10% growth at the minute, um, which is definitely safe. A good agency should be growing about 20% year on year. That's that's healthy, great growth. Um, but we I've been trying to grow smarter in like our profit margins are loads better. To be fair, we've always had great margins profit-wise, but yeah, we're in a really strong position now. And I think I've been trying to build a sustainable business because I think the the first six years was just built off momentum, and now I've got to I've been on a journey of proving myself it's not just momentum. We've got a great agency, you know.

SPEAKER_05 39:57

So from 2019 to today, like now annual revenue is just shy of 10 million?

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Yeah. Of dollars, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:03

Yeah, amazing. Six years. Six years, yeah. Six years. That's amazing. I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

And yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:09

How has that hiring process been over that time? Because presumably you've had to take on a huge volume of people over the years.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

Yeah. So we got up to 110 staff really rapid in our first, what, three, four years. Um, and I went on a journey where I hired a lot of people from agencies that already existed, you know, UI prospects of the world, things like that. And I'm going to be transparent that most of those people didn't work out. I either had to say goodbye because of performance issues, and I think it's because we have a very set way of doing things. Um, have you ever seen Wolver Wall Street? Of course. Yeah. So there's a scene where he has he decides to go and start his own little thing, doesn't he? And he's in this like back alley little place, and he writes a script and he says, follow the script, don't go out the lines. Um, I basically did that. I wrote a script of this is you know the whole presentation I did on stage that day. I said, I wrote it down in every single document. I said, This is the script, don't go out the lines, just just do it. And um I hired 60 graduates from university and just trained them up from the ground. I actually did a big campaign um during the pandemic called the Graduate Recruitment Scheme. And it was basically um quit uni because people were spending nine grand a year to do it from home. Like, why would you do that during the pandemic? I mean, quit uni and I'll teach you instead. Um, and we had several people quit and come start us. It got it made the media like press talked about it. This ain't c girl is telling you all to quit. Um, so yeah, graduates was the trick for me at the time during the fast growth. I think it's easier to hire and build than um hire from other agencies during fast growth, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 41:40

Did you like physically get a you know, you get a HR manager in, or you're working with a recruitment agent because that that volume is huge?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Yeah, it's huge. Um, no, I didn't. I had a HR team, like a little team to be fair, two people at a time. Um, but yeah, we were getting a lot of applications come to us. It's easier when it's graduates because all you've got to find is the number one skill I look for is curiosity. If you can find really curious people, then then get them in. You the rest you can teach. Um, so yeah, enthusiasm and curiosity. I went and found through graduates. And so getting them to apply was the easy part, just doing really great, you know, the vlog, the building the brand, the clients we were working with, getting those grads in was easy. We're definitely on a different journey now because we've got a, you know, we did build the business off graduates and now we're in a different space. Like I'm hiring people now on 60, 70 grand and 100 grand and you know, things like that. Um, so we do go and headhunt ourselves, um, but I still don't have a recruiting team. I actually still don't even have a sales team, really.

SPEAKER_05 42:36

And but is it then head of departments that are taking the interviews?

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:41

Yeah. Um, curiosity, how are you identifying that in someone?

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Um, you know, in an interview, and you say at the end, you know, because you've asked a million questions, and you go, if you just before we go, have you got any questions for me? And if they say no, I don't think I have, they don't get the job. Curious people have a million questions. They want to know, tell me about the first days, tell me about what clients you guys are working on. And they ask a million questions. Curious people have a million questions. Um, so that's my little trick, is like throughout the interview, you ask it getting to know them, what's our experience, you know, just getting to know their personality. And I always leave 10 minutes. Right, just before we go, have you got any questions for me? And if they say no, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I've got the job.

SPEAKER_05 43:18

On the spot. Yeah, yeah. But I've never said that to that bottom.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Um but yeah, curious people, it's always at the end if if they don't ask questions, then yeah, because that is curious people have, you know, like I said in my early days, I was sat with the dev teams, I was sat with the PPC teams asking them a million questions. You figure it out, right? You're just learning, and that they're the best people to find.

SPEAKER_05 43:41

So you started with a co founder. I did. Yeah. What do you think is the key to making sure you've got a good co founder in place?

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Oh, I've learned some lessons on this. So it's been an amazing journey. So I have worked in AC Zoom Life, and when I was deciding to start Rise at Seven, I obviously had to change. Well, I didn't have to, but I wanted to choose somebody to do this with. I obviously knew that Stephen Kemright. We had a great um pitch process of 100% win rate. So number one, that was the easy win. But I also had a best friend who worked with me as well called Will. And I considered thinking, but what if I ask Will? And Will was just like me. He was a really good creative person. He right basically we did the same thing, same job, same skill set. And I knew that when we have a bad day, we'd both be buggered because he can't do what I can't do. Do you know what I mean? I need somebody that can do the things I can't. And I can do the things he can't. And Steven, if you ever sat us in this room together, you'd think, God, you two are complete opposites. Like completely the opposite type of people. But that's what works because he can bring something to the business that I couldn't, and vice versa. So I think if you ever decided to start a business, a lot of people decide to start a business with someone just like you, because you're like, oh my God, I need a number of me, right? We all need founders, we feel like we need to double us. We don't, we need to find someone that can do the things we can't. Um, and I think that was the trick, definitely, to finding a good partner.

SPEAKER_05 45:06

And Stephen's no longer in the business, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 45:08

He's not, yeah. So pandemic, um, we went through the pandemic. What year would it have been? I think it was year three, year could begin of year four. He was really struggling in his personal life and his mental health. I think it pandemic was played a big part. The fast growth of the business definitely played a big part. We've had open conversations about how hard it was for him. Um, so he decided he wanted to exit. So I went for a management buyout, he exited. Um, and yeah, he's living a great life as a consultant now, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_05 45:37

Fine. Did that was that ultimately a positive thing in the long run for the business that set you back financially having to do that buyout then?

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Yeah, it set me back financially. I remember at the time, to be honest, I was petrified at the time. I I was quite my my confidence that that in that year was quite low. And I think it's because I could see he was flagging, I could see he was struggling, and I felt like I had the world on my shoulders, right? We was fast growing, we had 100% year-in-year growth, we expanded to America that year. So I felt I had the weight on my shoulders, and I was like, he could bounce any minute now. Um and to take the risk of, you know, financially being able to buy him out, it hit the business really hard, if I'm honest with you. You know, being a startup as well. Um but ultimately I think me taking control of it and building a business that had one founder with one vision, one direction was probably the best thing that the business needed. Um, I don't think we was ever, I wouldn't ever say we had two different ways of doing things. I wouldn't ever say we had two different visions of where the business, I think we were very aligned. Um, but I definitely think I was able to take control, slow things down. I actually did that on purpose. I I ended up ringing a few clients who was under my minimum and said, sorry, but we'll end in today. And they was like, why? And I was like because I want to take control of this business. And, you know, if it means less revenue, I don't mind. Um so I ended up declining the business by about a mil that year. Um, but then ended up, right, who who do we want to be? Who how do we want to grow for the next five years? And and yeah, build it from the ground up. And then since then, so the last three years, we've yeah, we've had great growth. We're really, really profitable doing growth every single year.

SPEAKER_05 47:15

Correct me if I'm wrong, it does it sounds like Stephen was very much like somewhat of a mentor figure in the your early stage of 100%. Yeah. Did it feel like somewhat of a like a symbolic passing of the baton, that kind of transition period?

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Yeah, I um it did, yeah. It's really nice that you say that. So there was really interesting moment in our journey where we, I don't know if you guys, anyone's listening, they'll be thinking, you know, they're not called CEO or the founder. We was I was called creative director, and he was called technical director. So none of us had these like, who's the MD? Who's the CEO? So we never really had those conversations. And I remember at the time thinking, what if what if K Mr says I'm gonna be the CEO? And what would I want to be? And I and I I I weren't really driven by ego at the time, so it didn't bother me. But I remember thinking, like, oh, I wonder if that ever comes up in conversation. Well, anyway there was this one day where we did a presentation to the business, and um Stephen said, anyway, we've got something to announce to you all. And I was thinking, have we? What we got on? I was like, I can't remember, we had any news. And he said, Oh, you're looking at your new CEO, Carrie Rose. And I was like, What? And he said, Well, the only way we're gonna get to the moon is if you take us. And I remember thinking, I was making emotional feeling about it. Because I remember thinking, what? I did not see it coming. I didn't expect it all, and I didn't think he'd pass on. And that symbolic button passing, I felt it from him a little bit. And and I didn't know whether it's because he really believed in me or whether he didn't believe in himself. I couldn't figure that part out. But either way, I remember feeling really grateful for it and tried to make him feel like I need you still. Do you know what I mean? Um, so yeah, it was that was a really interesting moment for sure. Um, because I I went home and googled what does a CO do?

SPEAKER_00 48:58

I was like, what does the CO do? What's the responsibilities of a CEO? I was like, what was I supposed to do? Um, because I wanted to be a good one, right? Um, so yeah, it was it was fun, it was interesting.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

Awesome. I love that. So you've kind of now got this, you've got this the weight of the entire business on the shoulder. You're at this moment, and uh because it did culture take a little bit of a knock? Did you have to rebuild culture and what did that process look like?

SPEAKER_02 49:21

Yeah, um I'm gonna be honest with you and say we went through a journey. If anybody googles Rise at Seven or talks about in the industry, three years ago, we had a really bad reputation for having map like crazy culture. There were reviews about us that, you know, uh fast-paced business, high expectations, working till midnight. Um uh the bot always changes their mind. Uh, you know, she's firing people left, right, and centre. And everything you read was true. Like everything was true. It was fast-paced, and I did fire people fast, and I did have high expectations, and I did change my mind all the time. It was chaos. We worked till midnight every night. Um, but I was working with Red Bull, I was working with the biggest brands in the world, and they had these mad expectations of me. So I had to set these expectations within my business. And I tried to tell people like it's not gonna be easy. I always in my interviews, not just say if you've got any questions, but I say, are you ready? Because this is not gonna be easy. We are a startup business. We don't have massive financial backing. I don't have a senior team, I don't have a HR team. Like, uh it's not gonna be easy. Are you ready for to learn fast and grow fast? Um, and some people was like, yeah, I really want to get into this because I I'm in the same position as everybody else. I was on the front line with everyone, you know. But then some people just did not like it and we our culture took a hit. So when I got the position of CEO, when I took full control of the business through the management buyer, I thought it's time to change this. Do I actually want to be working until midnight? Do I in, you know, this whole work-life balance. So I I've spent the last three years building a business that I would want to work out if I was a member of staff, and we've transformed it. Um so yeah, we've we've transformed the culture of the business now and it's it's been great. But it it was the early days of a start-up. That's just what it is.

SPEAKER_05 51:00

If you were to drill that down to a couple of key things, I would you say enabled you to make that transition?

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Of the change.

SPEAKER_05 51:07

Of the change from, you know, the the the stress of that hustle and bustle up till midnight working on accounts to okay, we can still produce incredible results, but not at such an insane rate.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

One of them was stop taking on too much work. Um the pressure that team had was because I brought in loads of work and didn't say no. Um, yeah, I had minimums of five grand a month, but I still took on everything. Um but I have a rule now of it has to take three F's fun, fame, or finance. Um if it's not bringing you fun to work on, we don't take it. So it has to be fun to work on. Um it doesn't have to make you famous because not every brand is like I have some clients like Mauser, never no one's ever heard of it, but it's an electrical components business, a B2B. It's not famous, but what they do bring is great finances. So they have to take two of the free F's. Um they have to bring either fun, fame, or finance. Um, and if they don't do that, then they don't come in. So I I basically um built a culture around it's not just about money, it's about doing work we all enjoy. Um that slows things down, it helps people kind of manage their workload a lot better, and I weren't just throwing new things over the wall for everyone to catch and thinking, what else you got today? So yeah, um, I think that was one of the biggest decisions I made for sure.

SPEAKER_05 52:23

What do you think that you have learned about being a leader in during that transitional period? Like, what do you think has enabled you to become a better leader for the team?

SPEAKER_02 52:33

When you get past 50 people, you realise you can't manage everybody anymore. And that's a really hard journey to go on. Anybody that's scaling a business, you find it really hard to manage people. You, you know, I I don't think I've ever been a micromanager. I'm actually the opposite, I'm quite a hands-off person. Um but trying to get, you know, the whole follow the script, don't go out the lines. So many people started to go for not follow script, they started to go out the lines. And I think that's you you end up getting really stressed and you get like angry, like, oh, you know, I told you guys this is how you do it, you know, whatever. And I think for me, I realised you can't manage everyone past 50 people, but what you can do is inspire everyone. So my role now is I every single month I go in and inspire people. I stand in front of the business and I tell them this is what's going on in the industry. I have an open um chat called um, like it's what's called innovation at Rise. And I'm constantly putting things in there, inspiring people, um, like giving people pats on the back when they do great work, setting good standards. So I think, yeah, as a leader, I realize, you know, you're not here to manage things anymore, you're here to inspire people. So I think that's the transition I've gone through for sure.

SPEAKER_05 53:41

I love those as two really simple, actionable things that people can introduce. I think you can introduce that at all levels. That innovation chat is really interesting. And then also you doing a monthly kind of stand-up with the team. Can you you break down just a little bit deeper what you're doing in those stand-ups?

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Yeah, um, 20 minutes. And um, so usually we have a monthly stand-up with the rest of the business. And actually, I allocate leaders in the business to do a stand-up too. So it's not just me. Um, but I open and I usually tell them that this is the theme of the month of what's going on in the industry. This is the the problems that businesses are facing and how the role we play to solve it. So I'm always trying to bring that to the table. So then people have are leading with that when they're thinking about their next strategy or their next idea. They're thinking about, okay, well, Carrie said this the other day, that this insight that that's going on within the you know, the market right now. Um, yeah, I think my job is to be out in the market to see which way the wind is blowing in the next two, three, four, five years. And I've got to bring that to my team and my clients. And I think that role is super important for a CEO. Because I think too many CEOs or founders of businesses are in the weeds and they don't get out in the market enough. And I think that's the difference that I've made over the last three years, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 54:54

Nice. Looking at the agency's service as a whole and how that's kind of evolving, like you define it as content-driven, uh uh search-driven content marketing. Yeah, yeah. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 55:07

We create content. And we create content for social media, for publications like me uh BBC, Daily Mail, etc., um, and on-site for Google. There are three channels we create content for. Um, search first is the kind of USP of Rise at 7 because I think content has always been driven by um, you know, audience data, uh, focus groups. Um, but actually I think we as marketers putting things in front of people, not knowing what is it you want, and we're trying to ask all these questions in focus groups to try to figure people out. But I think search data literally, they're telling us what they want. They're putting it in Google every single of the day. They're telling us their problems. You know, what we put out on social media is what I want people to think about me. But what I'm putting in the search bar is my real problems, my real truths, whether it's skincare problems, whether it's trying to lose weight, or whether it's, you know, anxiety at work or whatever. Search data is the human truth and it's unfiltered. Um, so I think search data plays a massive role in every marketing. So search first content ideas is is the proposition behind Rise and I think it's the thing that makes us different, but it's so unique and so powerful for every channel that it makes it it makes it so human.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

As a business, is it a retention-based service? As in you are you've got you win a client like Red Bull and you retain them for long term, or is the is it quite campaign-based?

SPEAKER_02 56:26

Retention. So, yeah, 80% of our clients is retainer-based. Nice. Minimum 12 months. Um, and then the rest projects. We do make a lot of uh revenue on projects, and you have little strategic things to you know upsell projects in direct throughout the year, but ultimately we try to do minimum, minimum 12 months. I think with SEO, it's especially well, we don't just do it or do SEO. To be honest, actually, SEO is our smallest amount of revenue. Content in in in all essences is where we make obviously all of our money, but it's a long-term play, right? Um, so yeah, we we try to aim for retainer-based model at all times.

SPEAKER_05 57:00

Which is presumably why your profit margins are so strong because you're able to optimise for that.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

And why my cash flow is great.

SPEAKER_05 57:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

I've never had cash flow problems. Um we were very strict on payment terms, very strict on 12-month minimums. People have said to me in the past, yeah, but you know, clients say, oh no, we can only sign three months, we can only sign six months. Just say, oh, okay, well, we ours is 12 months, our policy. Because if they want you, they'll they'll go for you. And if they don't want you, they weren't going to come anyway. So just stick to it, just say, well, ours is 12 months. So they will they will as soon as they if they want you, they'll still they'll accept your terms.

SPEAKER_05 57:35

Um, how would you handle expectation management? Because I see a lot of a mistake that many agencies make when they're just trying to compete with other agencies as they go for really short terms and promise really quick results immediately, which are not really possible. So, how are you have paving that conversation with clients? Because presumably of your service, it's it's a long-term play, which is why the 12-month is not just in play for revenue, but it's there for results, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Yeah, for sure. I think um so we're able to forecast on 12-month revenue year on year. So we do forecast in that way and make those sort of promises. We um we don't sell time, um, we sell outputs and outcomes. So outputs might be right in 12 um in the 12-month period, we'll run six campaigns of which each generates 50 pieces of content and those across X amount of channels. So that's the outputs we're selling. And of the of those outputs, the outcome of that is gonna be an extra 1.6 million a year. And if you spend 200 grand with us, you know, it's an X return. So yeah, I think we we we think long term, to be honest, we always try to do two years, three year forecasts. Um, because then they can show how you're gonna scale it over time. Um, but yeah, I think the people think too small, I think, um, and they think too short term, but I think that's a confidence thing. I think agency owners, it's all in confidence. I honestly do. I think that's a trick.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:54

Because I've I've suffered in my business and it's directly correlated when my confidence has dropped. You just gotta be confident.

SPEAKER_05 59:02

When people think like SEO or they hear like results uh search first, like they think SEO and they kind of default to blog posts and sort of text-based content. Um can you think of back to like a really successful campaign that you've ran and then paint a picture of what that looked like? Um because I'm interested to hear, you know, when we're talking content and we're talking like video content, presumably, static content, like how does video content and static content become search first?

SPEAKER_02 59:29

Yeah, I've got a good example of this. Um we as consumers are making up our own terms all the time. SEOs always go for category keywords. So their job is to literally go, we want to rank for holidays, we want to rank for cars, or we want to rank for iPhones or whatever. So they go after single terms. Whereas we as users, we don't talk like that anymore. We don't search addresses, we already know kind of what we want. Um what we recognize with so we used to work with Pretty Little Thing, probably one of my best examples because it was truly multi-channel, it was great. We used to work with Pretty Little Thing, and what we noticed is that searches for joggers and hoodies was, you know, a certain amount of volume a month. But searches for airport outfits was 10 times that. And it's because people, yes, was wearing joggers and hoodies at the airport, but the context in the where they're wearing it was more important to the consumer. And when we typed in airport outfits, nothing came up. There was no landing page, there was no product pages, there was no content online or anything like that. But what there was was UGC. So creators on TikTok, creators on Pinterest are started to create their own little category of airport outfits. Like, here's what I'm wearing the airport hashtag airport outfits. So they started creating their own UGC. Um, and what we needed to do was just then apply that to search. So we created an airport outfits category on site, and it included every product that was you would wear an airport outfit. So joggers, hoodie, and it was all existed already. We just categorized it in a smart way. We then distributed that to the press um of like building like press coverage all about airport outfits and styles of what to wear at the airport within the travel and things like that. But then we got a shit ton of creators. Um, social was then popping off so much that when people were searching for airport outfits, the most searched for brand for an airport outfit was pretty little thing. We ended up owning that category, if that makes sense. Um, so the content we distributed wasn't just a blog post of here's 10 things you can wear at an airport, it was a full category. It was social content, it was UGC, but it was led via search in the way that people behaving. Because I think SEO has always just been so much on like just single channel, like little keywords of dresses or joggers or hoodies. But where is it they're wearing that? Um, we ended up replicating that, by the way, the same strategy for destination outfits. So rather than selling bikinis, we did Ibiza outfits, Paris outfits, Greece outfits, and it generated millions and millions of revenue for them. So much that actually a fashion brand got in touch with us a couple of weeks ago saying, We're trying to find an agency that can do this thing for us, and it's this strategy we've seen this brand do. I said, What's the brand that's a pretty little thing? I said, That was us, and we won the client.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:01

So that's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a really unique like service positioning. Yeah. Has that changed a lot from from day one?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Um it has. It has, yeah. I think it's because what we've recognized is you know how I said before, everyone's chasing Google, but we need to chase humans. It was humans that were creating the little airport out of our categories. It was us on TikTok, it was us on Pinterest, pinning our own little ways that driving me of doing things. So yeah, I think that concept definitely wasn't there from day one of Rise of Seven. I think it probably started to come in maybe year three. I started like thinking, yeah, like it's humans that are moving faster than anybody else, and we're creating our own little things going on. So yeah, we we we track social, we track search data, and then create really good marketing strategies off the back of that.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:50

Is it then the creative strategists in the company that's doing that? Or do you have a research team that's like looking for those trends that creative strategies?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:57

Yeah, creative strategists essentially are just search first, so they've got to find data to back up their ideas. Um, so yeah, we have a we have a data team and stuff, but they're very much on the post-campaign side, whereas the pre-campaign, like finding good insight to get ideas, is coming from craves.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:11

Yeah. A little bit of a segue for a second. Creative strategy seems to be, I mean, it's like the hottest role in agency at the moment, and and also one of the hardest roles together. It's so hard.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

Because I think that's what I am. That's what I used to be, is like a creative strategist. Yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:25

How are you paving that? Like you're training internally.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

No, it's not like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

It's a it's a hot topic.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

Um God, how are we training that? Um I think creative strategy people have to have less allocation than everybody else. You know, we all try work on time sheets and things like that, and we allocate time and tasks. Whereas I think creative strategy people have to be have creative freedom to think. Um so usually they're allocated probably 60% rather than 80% or 100%, whatever people agencies do. Um, so yeah, giving them the time and space to be creative and think and find things, um that's that's just one angle of it. But multi-getting them to understand multi-channel is is the trick, and that's the hardest thing for it. Because every, I think in the last 10 years, definitely people have gone real niche and specialized. Whereas I think broad marketer is the thing that actually we need now. Um, so I'm trying to train people to think like a marketer and then learn how to apply that to channels. Um, and sometimes actually I just learn from like old old school advertisers like Rory Sovland. If you can follow understand their way of thinking, you can apply that to any channel kind of thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:39

Are you hiring pre-existing creative strategists or are you finding there are like secondary roles that you're transitioning into that?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:46

Um, I've hired a mix of people. It's really interesting because I've hired like digital strategy people and then creatives and then put them in a team together and let them complement each other, if that makes sense. Um, I think I've hired people from creative backgrounds, creative agencies, and then technical agencies, data backgrounds, and then put them in a team together to see what happens, and that's where they create magic. Um, but yeah, I think trying to find someone that can do it all is hard. But to be honest, the the little trick is content marketers. Content marketers, people think blog posts again, but real content marketers, what they're thinking about is a concept that can live on every channel, whether it's email, whether it's you know, blog, whether it's social, things like that. And finding those, and they often exist, by the way, within B2B. So B2B, SaaS products, tech, that sort of thing. So they're they're very very good people to hire. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:36

Love that. Cool. And so now, like, where do you feel like the service is going to evolve coming forward? Like, we've got, you know, you're there's a huge amount of hype around AI in the world of SEO at the moment and search results and so on, and you know, LLMs. What would are you looking into that? Are you evolving to that space?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

Yeah, it's funny. So I was stood on stage a couple of years ago. Years ago, when I basically said that the industry is going to massively change, people, I think Google's gonna lose its dominant share. I think people are gonna go to other places to search, like TikTok and you know, Pinterest, Pinterest and all these and YouTube and things like that. And we're gonna see the role of the website probably die. I think the website is gonna play a very small part of the user journey. And I remember getting cancelled. So I got like Twitter and everybody was like, Who's this girl talking about this? Like, what little shit? And then all of a sudden, yeah, Chat GBT and TikTok's taking search from from Google, Google's below 90% market share than in the uh for the first time in a decade. And we're seeing it happening real time. Um, yeah, we started to move in this direction maybe about two years ago. And what we're seeing is that people don't go to Google and search for airport outfits anymore. What they're actually doing is going to ChatGPT and saying, when I run, my shins hurt. So they're sharing problems and pain points. They're having a full-blown conversation with Chat GPT. And then in the end, the the journey they go on is to buy a new pair of running trainers because they know that their shoes aren't good enough for when they run. So we've got to understand people's pain points before they've even decided to search, I guess. And search is just having a conversation. So yeah, conversational search is huge at the minute, and we're tapping into pain points and real life problems right now for a lot of our clients. Like JD Sports, you know, they sell running trainers. Um we're going after those people that have got bad shins right now. So it's it's it's an interesting journey. We're all going on in a search, but I personally love it. I think it's so interesting. Um, and it does mean though, so you know, take LLMs, Chat GPT, things like that, they still get their content and information from somewhere. Um, so now it's less around um hacking algorithms, but it's about sending signals, I guess. Um, and sending those signals is, you know, creating a more integrated marketing approach, I think, than ever before. And SEO is is is at the core of it at the minute, which I think is exciting.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:58

Yeah, fine. Awesome. Have you are you using AI within dates? Because I mean we had the conversation about data. Are you using a lot of data within the company based on across all of the clients that you're working on at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:10

Yeah, quite a lot. Yeah. Um we use AI in many ways. Um, it's kind of like AI creates the thing and then humans kind of finish it, if that makes sense. Yeah. That's kind of the process. Um, but yeah, we um we scaled to 110 people in our biggest. We're now at 80. Um but we're doing more revenue, more profit than ever before because essentially you can do more with less, um, which is the dream of any business owner, if I'm honest. Um, I used to think a big head count was like the signal of success, but it's not. Um and actually it causes you more headaches.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:49

Yeah, I I feel like the the companies that are bloated per se, because they're gonna start to feel even more bloated as time goes on. They're gonna be a big threat by these much smaller, scrappier businesses.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:01

I have a debate often with my finance team because um I was always taught that you need to have 100 grand revenue per head, and that makes a good model, right? Um and or $150,000 in in dollars. Um, but I think business uh agencies now you can do more than that. Um I think we're averaging maybe about 170,000, 180,000 a head, something like that. Um yeah, and I think if you stick it's an oversimplified way of looking at running an agency, but it really does help to know how many heads should I have in this business for the revenue we're making. Um my finance team tells me not to focus on it too much, you know, we need to think about these small things and blah, blah. And I get it, but it it does give a general rule of form and gives you an idea of what you should have.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:42

Yeah, 100%. Your role, you're obviously you're still that CEO, that's your position. Did you figure out what that meant and and what does that look like today for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

Um I it's a it's a visionary role, and my job is to know what's coming in the next five years to keep my guys in jobs. That's ultimately my responsibility. My responsibility is to see the future, which is the hardest job ever. Um, but you know, I think that's the role I'm really am thriving in at the minute and and try to make sure I get it right. It's funny actually, because um one of my guys is called Brandon, he actually said something to me the other day. He said, How do you get it right every single time? And I said, I don't know. I you know, we've got to take gambles, right? We've got to take risks, and but my job is to be out there seeing which way the wind is blowing constantly. So yeah, I d I don't do much of the work anymore, which is great. Um, my job is to inspire the work. So that's the role I play.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:38

What do you personally enjoy the most out of your current role?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

Um I love teaching people. Like I love sitting here in conversations with people like you and learning, even in things that aren't in my niche, but I can apply to my niche and I'll go in and tell everybody about everything that I've learned. Um my mum actually taught me that from a young age. So when I used to go to school and when I use I remember being at uni, the first thing you do is walked in, took my shoes off, put my school bags down, and she goes, Tell me what you've learned today. Oh mum, so I learned about this thing is you know, when it rains and then it goes up in the clouds, and then you know, you end up telling your your mum what you've learned on that day. And but I think that's the the process that I have within my business is anything that I've learned in my day. I try to go and teach everybody it. This is everything I've got WhatsApp groups, I've got innovation chats, I've got you know, try to keep them informed. Um, yeah, that's the role I enjoy the most is teaching people.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:32

Love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:33

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:34

And then the business as a whole, like, where do you see Rise at Seven moving towards? Like, do you plan an exit in the future? Do you think you're gonna be working until you drop in that company? Like, what's what's the situation?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

I'm gonna be honest, I want Rise at Seven to live beyond me. I think it absolutely has the capability to live beyond me. And I think somebody is gonna have to take this off my hands. I believe in myself. I believe I can get it past 10 mil, I do. Um, but I do think I'm gonna have to pass the reins to someone that's 10 times more qualified than me, and that's not a bad thing. That's this is me saying, hey, hun, I've got it to here. I need you to get it to there. And I could play a pivotal role in being like an MD or a, I don't know, I don't care why I am there at that point. I I'll play some role, but I think there's someone out there better than me that can take it to where I want it to be. Um, but I want to be the first search agency to win a can lion. And the can lion part isn't actually the important part. I don't know if that bothered about winning the award, but it's about building an exit cable of.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:31

What does that award mean for people that don't know?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

So a can lion is probably one of the biggest awards you can win within advertising. Um, it's a symbol of of great creative work. And, you know, a lot of people will probably laugh at the concept of a can lion now because you know, if you pay big budgets and you have big clients, then you could probably win a can lion. But ultimately, no one in search has ever won one, a search first campaign. And I want to build an agency, I don't mind not winning the award, but it's about building an agency capable of because we've done really good creative work that's with search first at the heart of it, um, that has great impact on the world, I guess. Um, that's what I want to build. And if that means selling to another agency that can help give us the clients, the budgets, the tool sets to be able to do that, then I'm absolutely in for it. Um, so yeah, I'm transparent to all of my team that I was 25 when I started this business. I've built it, not knowing what I should be doing, and now I've learned great ways of running this business. But I truly know there's people out there that's better than me that can take it off my hands one day. I'm still there now. I'm still got loads that I want to do. So I've got a good couple of years, you know, ahead of me of me running the business. But yeah, I would love to get this business to live beyond me, and I think somebody else will be able to do that for me one day.

unknown 1:13:41

Nice.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:42

Yeah. Zooming out a bit and looking at or speaking to some of the people that are going to be watching this who've got agencies that are the majority of which will probably be stuck with that small to mid size. Yeah. What would you say to those guys who are trying to who want to, they're inspired by someone like yourself and they want to break through to that point in the business?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:58

I would say um find one product that has the biggest retention. So which product do you sell that you win fast, you retain the longest, and you deliver great work for? Because most agencies do a couple of things, right? Multiple things. What's the one service that you retain the most and you know win faster than anything else? Ten times it, double down on it and make yourself famous for it. Um, find a unique proposition in the market about that one service and go go double down it. Make that your land product. Everything else is expand. So once they've bought that, you expand outwards or upwards. Um, yeah, I think too many people are trying to do everything for everyone. And I think you need to go and find the one thing you're really good at, become famous for it, and then expand out over the next few years. But yeah, make yourself famous for the next two, three years. It's the one thing you're really good at. That's what I would advise.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:50

Do you think it's better to hyper niche on service or hyper niche on niche on industry that you work with?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

Hyper niche on service. I've gone through the studio actually. I think service um because I've seen people go down the niche route and I like it. There's some great, great models. Um, and I thought about myself. But I think the service is has a wider opportunity of market that you can sell that one thing to a lot of people rather than to a small amount of people, um, or everything to a small amount of people. Um and I've I've found as well that some agencies double down on one niche, but they end up not actually being that amazing at that niche. Um and actually, you know, with other other brands are like, no, we don't want to work with you because you've got a competitor and things like that, it's quite common at the minute. So yeah, I've um I don't have a really strong opinion, but I think I would, if I was gonna go, if I was gonna do this and I was thinking, right, which one I'm gonna double down on, I'd go double down on a service. That's what I'd do, and make yourself really famous for that service rather than niche.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:01

I think it's also you run the risk with industry, whether you actually have a deep passion for that industry longer term, because you're then locked into that thing for the next 10 years or however long you're gonna be doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

I actually met someone in Florida a couple of weeks back and um I was asking her what does she do? And she was a massive agency. There's about 200 people there. And um I said, what is it you do? And she's oh, we specifically work in home holiday rentals. So we're an agency, but just in holiday rentals, literally millions. And I was like, I I love it, and I love that, but they've obviously got their own tech products, you know, all these different stuff. So it works for sure. Um But yeah, I think if anybody's listening to this and you are just an agency that does everything at the minute, you know, you're maybe an integrated agency, mobile channel, you know, things like that. I would double down on a service rather than an industry.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:53

If you were to start again as a founder today, like in today's market, like what's the first thing that you're gonna do if you want to grow? Let's say aiming to be as fast and sustainable as you were in your growth.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:04

What would I double down on? Personal brand. And personal brand for me is not about me, it's about the what I can give to the world. So I'll double down on what can I give to the world. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:16

Um I would go right, what is it, everything I know about this industry that's happening right now? Because it's uh, you know, the world is changing rapid and everybody just needs advice. So I would make sure everyone comes to me for advice. That's what I would do. Nice um and go and educate, create content, talk on stage, sit in rooms with 10 MDs and say this is everything I know, I'll teach you everything I know about this industry, whatever. Um, that's what I'd do.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:43

Nice. I think I mean personal brand is the best thing that I that I ever did. I'm so glad that I'd made that decision. But I think now more than ever, even though we're in a world of AI and content and so on, and content iteration is just like more and more, more and more, more on online demands that the in-person piece, the in-person events, the speaking on stages, the being in front of people. I believe at least as a society, we're only going to want more of that. 100%. And that's where the big brands are really gonna be built.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:10

I think people forget about the personal part of the personal brand. They're like, who is this person behind the nine mil revenue, behind the 80 staff, behind the management buyer, behind the Red Bull, you know, clients, who is the person? Because ultimately we're in agencies, we're selling people. And I think we need to lean on the great traits that you make you a great founder, and that makes me a great and my team great at what they do. Um, yeah, and and make sure people see it. So yeah, I think there's a m ah, it's gonna be huge about people wanting to be in person. I know that when I ever for every minute I'm with clients face to face and with the market face to face, is every minute we make money.

unknown 1:18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:50

And every minute I'm sat at home and living behind a screen is every minute I'm not making money.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:54

I was I always speak to new agencies who offer, you know, general services are a nice way for them to get in and then they kind of end up doing other things, like for example, uh lead generation services, paid performance, running lead gen, even for local business. A little bit of AI on top of that. And uh I say to people, it's not about the fact that you're doing something unique because there are a thousand people doing what you're doing. It's just about people and people know, and businesses are aware there are a thousand people doing this. They just want to see someone and they want to trust one individual. They just need to know someone personally who does that thing that they actually trust.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

Yeah, 100%. I um sometimes, you know, business uh deals can come out of nowhere. I was literally on a flight the other week. I ended up um, I don't know if a little bit of a tip. If anyone flies with Virgin, um, they have a bid upgrade service, and sometimes you can bid like a hundred quid and get in first class. Like you can get, and I ended up doing it and got on. I was like, oh my god. So I got on first class, ended up sat down next to this guy, ended up talking to him. Turns out he's the CEO of one of the biggest tech businesses in the world. I didn't even know. I said, Oh, dude, where can I? And he was like, uh I only found out he was the CEO afterwards. But I am now um, I've been speaking to him for the last two weeks with meetings and stuff. We've just won one of their one of their brands. I've just been introduced to the CEO of their global, like global team and all that. So I'm like, those in-person moments of just having a chat on a plane, we had cocktails just chatting, do you know what I mean? About who, what is it we do, about personal life, like everything. I think we don't do enough of that anymore. We really don't know. I remember back in the day when I was at my old agency, we used to do like the races and we used to do dinners and stuff all the time. And that was a big part of client services. We don't do that anymore. Um, and I I believe there's some people listening that go, no, I've built a business remote, fully remote digitally, and I get it because I have. I've built my whole business was pandemic remote. So I get it. But I think in order to build a longevity sustainable business that's going to live beyond me, you have to build community. You have to build have relationships face-to-face time.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:46

Agree. Agree. Yeah. We went to an event last year, and uh well, my my co-founder Joe attended this event, and he's just so happened to that's a hack on events as always buy the VIP ticket and be sat at the front with everyone who's prepared to spend. Sat next list, Jen. And uh he so happened to be one of the highest spenders on Meta at that current moment in time. Just spending a million pounds per day on Meta. And this was just some lead gen in some new kind of insurance claim model. Then that opened up a conversation to a bunch of introductions. We had a wait list of clients off the back of that event, and we ended up working with him for a period of time, like consulting on that ad strategy. And it's just through getting in person and having those. I never regret going to events and being in person speaking to people.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:25

And I think to be honest, if any, I don't know if junior people will be listening to this, but anybody trying to get into the career, like you have to get out there. There's so many people that I hire that like don't want to leave their living room, they've got social anxiety. Oh, it's it's an unfortunate for them to be in that position because like I think you have to build confidence and be confident to be able to meet people at events and have a chat. Um, yeah, those skill sets are what we're all looking for to this day, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:50

I've got three quick fire questions for you. Go for them. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:53

Oh my god, nervous.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:55

One brand that you haven't worked with that you'd love to work with.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

I would love to work with IKEA.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:59

Ikea. Interesting. Why?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:01

Um I IKEA is there in every person's life moments, whether you are moving house, going to university, having a baby. And I would love to have a role in being part of someone's life moment. I think that's a I think IKEA plays a good role in that.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:17

I could see them doing exceptionally well with your service, actually. Yeah. Yeah, the perfect world. Yeah, 100%. Awesome. Uh, one thing every agency should stop doing immediately.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

Um talking about themselves.

unknown 1:22:28

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:28

Yeah, in slide decks, get rid of them, cut them out. The very first slide should be everything we know about you, insight, data.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:36

And it just these are these aren't really rapid fire because I'm asking secondary questions, but I'm in the interest that if we're not talking about ourselves, okay, are you talking about the clients quite heavily as well, though, after talking about the prospective client, talking about similar case studies, do you do you dive into case studies quite thoroughly?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

Yeah, so one thing client agencies always do is they'll do all these beautiful decks, talk about themselves, talk about the client, and then there are case studies at the end. Never put cases at the end, always filter it through. So when you're making a recommendation to a client, you're oh, and by the way, we did this for this, and this is the result. And then you keep going and they keep going, so you kind of filter it through case studies. So yeah, we do kind of drop that in, and that's all they need for a signal of trust. Um yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:17

That's a great value add, by the way. Like it's a it's all it's a very similar, it's a very similar kind of mindset to like creating a webinar, for example. You you produce the training the training phase and then back it up with evidence.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:28

Yeah, I love that. That's awesome. Um, one thing you wish you learned earlier as a founder.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:32

Ooh, that my mental health and my confidence and my mindset is actually the most important thing ever. Because if I am not confident and I'm not strong, then you know, pray for the rest of you. Because I I've got to set those standards and and and you know, lead with confidence. So yeah, I I think I burnt myself out thinking that if I was to put focus into me and my health and my mental health and all that, that the business is gonna suffer because I'm gonna have to put all my focus into me. I thought that's what happened. But actually, when I focus put all my focus into me, my business did 10 times better. So, yeah, I think that was the that's what I learned.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:16

Yeah, I had this conversation yesterday with a gent that said, like, you are your business, like anybody that isn't doing that. What are some principles or what are some um like habits that you've introduced that have enabled you to bring your best and be your best?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:28

Um I remember at the time when I was building the business and we were doing great revenue, great profit, but I was still paying myself 40 grand a year. I lived in a small two-bed house that I bought when I was on 28 grand a year. I I didn't feel like a winner. And I remember someone saying to me, go feel like a winner. Go and book yourself in first class or go and get yourself that car. Because if you don't feel like a winner, you're just not gonna, you're not gonna bring that back into the business where everybody else feels like, oh my god, I'm I feel like a winner too. So um, if anyone's in this like mid-journey of the business is doing great, but you're personally not necessarily winning from it, my my honest, friendly advice is go do something that makes you feel like a winner and go go experience it. Because then you won't want to go back either. Um, so that was one one of them. Um yeah. What else was it? What was the question again?

SPEAKER_05 1:25:22

Well, I think that's an exceptional way to finish up, to be honest. I mean, that's a beautiful like piece of advice. I and I preach that so heavily. Like go experience something great, buy the car, do the thing, you know. Um, Joe, my co-founder, we had this just big debate. He was can the business, can I buy, can I buy a Porsche? Like, can it is it? Are we at that point? I was like, get the get the Porsche, sit in that car every day, drive to the office and feel like the boss. Yeah. You know, and bring your best to it and it makes you fill those boots.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:47

This sounds bad, but like I am my finance team's nightmare because I'm the team will go, right, we've got a meeting in London, we've got a client pitch, and they need a hotel. She's trying to find the cheapest hotel in London. No, I'm not gonna put them in the rinse, but I'm like, go get them something nice. And they're like, oh, you know, Carrie, we need to keep No, because then they'll they'll do a great job. They'll feel like winners, they'll be in the room opening their curtains and they'll feel like great, and they'll go and make it back. It's 300 quid. Like, just let's go make them feel like winners. I've just take everybody to wilderness. Wilderness reserve is one of the most luxury places in the UK for taking everyone. I want my team to feel like a fucking winner. That's what I want them to feel. So, um, because it it do you know what? Winner, no, winning creates winners. If you ever see someone win, and then they win again, and then they keep winning. You feel, oh my god, it's crazy, it creates winner mentality. And I think if we can create winner mentality by doing these little win moments, it can it can build really successful people. So a little hack.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:41

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:42

Yeah, but you gotta you gotta invest in it.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:44

Yeah, Harry, it's been an absolute pleasure. Oh, thank you. Thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:48

Thank you.