The Techmap Podcast

A common goal for many agency founders is to grow their business to a size big enough to sell. Very few understand what this takes, let alone realise that vision. It's a tricky path, fraught with pitfalls and many terminologies to bamboozle the unwary. Fortunately, experts are on hand who know this space inside and out. People like Tom Lewis, who has spent a good chunk of his career buying agencies for holding companies and now for private equity. Thankfully Tom agreed to join me on the podcast to chat about his experiences and lay out some advice for agencies going on the journey to exit or even growing through acquisition. If you are interested in selling or buying, Tom's words of wisdom will be a great help.

Very many agency owners have a view of growing their business to a point where they can sell or hand it over to a management team. But, often, agencies reach around 15-20 people and hit a glass ceiling. They struggle to get beyond this milestone. In this conversation, Dan de la Cruz from Polymensa joins me to chat through the biggest changes agencies need to make to keep growing. Things like having a leadership team in place, a core of senior marketers to take the load of the founders, establishing a vision, and much more. If you are interested in growing your agency from small to medium and beyond, Dan shares some great ideas and advice to help you along the way.

When you run an agency, creative shop, or any service-based business, you will come up against a client that doesn't want to pay their invoice. It's not if but when. Sometimes you can see it coming, most times you can't. So what do you do about it when your invoices sit unpaid? What's the process for recovering your fees? Join Sophy Francis from Element Global and me as we explore our experiences of chasing non-paying clients. We've both been through the mixer with non-paying clients and ended up winning through the County Court system. If you are currently chasing payment, you can learn a thing or two from our experiences about what to do next. If you're in the fortunate position of not yet having ti fight to get paid, have a listen. It will help you prepare for the inevitable. And it is inevitable (if you provide any credit to your clients).

What is agency culture? What does it mean to say there’s a great culture in a business? Is it a table tennis table and free beer on Fridays, a fancy coffee machine, or the fact your team can make toast at your expense 24/7? Maybe it’s flexible working or the open-door policy with the exec team. Listen to this episode of Through the Line as Andy Bargery talks with Christine MacKay of animation studio, Salamandra. Christine explains some of the elements of culture at her agency business that have enabled it to grow to 16 people in three locations in the last 8 years.

There isn’t much more important in agency life than the relationships you build with your clients. And yet, building client relationships is something I have never received any formal training in. It’s just something you learn on the job. What if I tell you there’s an equation for what forms great client relationships. Better still, what if I invited an agency pro and expert on client relationships to explain it? Look no further. In the latest episode of Through the Line, Paul Phillips joins me to explore the ‘Trust Equation’, developed by David Maister in his famous text, The Trusted Advisor and what this means for improving agency and client relationships.

The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on how we build teams. In agency land, we are challenged with a workforce that no longer expects to be tied to an office eight hours a day, five days a week. That's quite a shift. In this episode of Through the Line, I explore how to build remote teams with Kathryn Strachan from Copyhouse - an agency she has grown to 26 remote employees during the pandemic.

Nobody goes into running agencies because they love financial management. Whatever flavour of agency you run, your first love is likely to be design or banding, and not bookkeeping, cash flow and balance sheets. But, if you're going to be successful, you will need an intimate understanding of how to manage, understand, interpret, and make decisions based on your finances. That's where people like Rayhaan come in. They help agency entrepreneurs use their financial data to make critical decisions. You know, things like whether you can afford to hire new staff, how much to keep in reserve for the tax man, or even how to manage your affairs, so you pay less (the right amount) of tax. Listen to the latest episode of Through the Line as Rayhaan explains his processes for sound financial management, planning for tax, valuing your business, getting ready for exit and a whole lot more. Finance may not always be the most exciting part of running an agency, but it's bloody important.

Understanding agency finance may not be what gets you out of bed in the morning. I'd bet my kids' college fund that accounting is at the bottom of the list of what gets you excited about running your agency. But, frankly, it could hardly be more critical if you want to survive, thrive and eventually exit your agency. The great news about accountancy is that there are loads of great and affordable software packages that can help you keep compliant. On top of that, there are people like Stacey Borrow from Profit By Design. Stacey is a management accountant, which means she helps you look forward with your numbers and use that knowledge to make informed decisions. Stacey joins me on the podcast to explore the five areas of finance that agency owners should focus on to save costs, make more money and free up time. I hope you enjoy the show.

Lead generation is one of those issues we like to talk about in agency land. We're on a constant cycle of business development because, frankly, it's how the agency world operates. Not only do we have to focus on keeping our clients happy, but for survival and ultimately growth, we also must bring new clients and projects on board all the time. The problem is, many of us are bad at lead generation. Like the proverbial plumber whose toilet doesn't flush or cobbler with holes in her shoes, we fail to get a marketing process in place for consistently and predictably winning new business. That's where Christian Banach comes in with his PROPEL system; a way of building a reliable, trustworthy and predictable lead generation engine for agencies. One based on value add, being "professionally persistent", and starting with your prospects' problem in mind, not just pitching around a generic creds deck. Listen in to find out more.

If you have ever looked at the size and the complexity of the Chinese market, you will know it's both massive, exciting and terrifying, all at the same time. Yet, the opportunity is enormous, especially for us Brits. It seems Brand Britain is a big deal for Chinese consumers. But, making it in China takes experience, money and contacts. That's where specialist agency Dawn Rider comes in. Set up by family team Sabrina and Terence, the duo uses their know-how and connections in China to help Western brands enter the market. They've been doing it for a couple of decades and know about how to succeed. Listen and get up to speed on marketing in China, the massive opportunity of social e-commerce, and the experience of setting up a new agency on the other side of the planet.

If you run a small agency, I am prepared to bet good money you have heard someone say 'you need to work on the business and not in the business'. Am I right? I am equally confident your next question is, how? With the competing interests of clients, employees and your cash flow, it's not always that easy. But fear not. I've got your back. It is time you looked at the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS for short. EOS is a framework developed to help business owners structure their organisation and management systems to facilitate growth. In this episode of Through the Line, I talk with Tim Watson, a UK based EOS Implementor. Tim is an expert at helping business owners to understand and use the EOS framework, a skill he has learned from applying the principles for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Listen in as Tim introduces the core elements of EOS, such as the Vision Traction Framework and Rocks. If you run a business, this is well worth an hour of your time.

Does your agency look like every other agency? Are you part of the custard soup of marketing and creative services companies? Does your messaging focus on you being award-winning, or full-service agency, or that you work with your clients as partners for the long term? If so you have a problem and it's one of the reasons why brand side marketers find it so difficult to tell agencies apart. From the outside, you mostly look the same. Roland is a bit different. He runs an agency that helps other agencies to market themselves. How? Through clear strategy, differentiated positioning and great communications all built on top of some brave, strategic decision making. Think your agency strategy, positioning and messaging could do with a shot in the arm. Start here and pick up some great advice to get you thinking clearly.

Growing businesses is a journey full of learnings. Whether you are developing a publishing business, a travel brand or a marketing agency, I promise there will be plenty of lessons along the way. Just ask entrepreneur, Martyn Sibley. In this episode of Through the Line, Martyn joins me to explore his journey. We unpack some of his key lessons for success, such as finding partners with complementary skills, and the importance of mentors. We also talk about Martyn's passion for disability inclusion as we explore the spending power of the purple pound. Did you know in the UK that disabled consumers have a spending power of £250bn per annum, with this figure rising to $8tn (yes that is trillion and not billion) globally? That's one hell of a big market place, largely ignored by marketers. Just 0.06% of advertising features people with a disability. When you consider 22% of the UK population has a disability that is hardly inclusive. But, it is also a massive opportunity for the right brand and savvy marketers

In the dynamic world of marketing, change is pretty much a constant. Over the last two decades, everything has changed, except perhaps for how most of us approach the delivery of marketing programmes or projects. Enter stage left the world of agile marketing. A world in which we use data to test, learn, iterate and refine in an ongoing, process of working towards marketing perfection. A methodology built on software development that suits the digital marketing landscape we now play in. You would be forgiven for thinking agile marketing sounds a bit like yet another buzzword. But give it a chance. It includes some fundamentally different approaches to management, whether you are in a consultancy/ agency environment, or in-house. You might find a few ideas in Zoe's approach that will help your marketing go from good, to great.

There's a common belief among marketing agency entrepreneurs that when the time comes, and they have made enough money or spent enough energy on the business, they will be able to sell it. They may be thinking the likes of Omnicom, WPP, or another big agency group will snap them up, and they can live off the proceeds. The reality is very different. Agency owners that successfully exit this way are few and far between. That said, it's not impossible, and many achieve their exit and go on to other things. In this podcast, Andy talks with Dan Rhodes, a branding consultant who successfully sold his agency to another in 2007. Dan shares some of his key learnings from the process; getting value from your advisors, negotiation strategies, valuation and earn-out and crucially, what can you do in advance to get your agency in the best possible shape to sell. As Dan describes, getting match fit. If you are thinking of selling your agency business, you're going to get a great deal from this episode of Through the Line.

Our Beyond the Creds Deck episodes are interviews with agency founders. People who took the crazy and challenging road to fame and fortune by opening up their own marketing shop. In this edition, I talk with Kelly Molson, Co-Founder and MD of digital agency Rubber Cheese. Kelly describes her experience of securing her first clients, getting a business partner, finding a niche and growing her client base over a 17-year journey. Kelly also opens up about her challenges with infertility and IVF. We talk about how this has affected her personally and her agency too; imagine having to look after your clients while undergoing a course of IVF, or making horrendously difficult life decisions. Thank you, Kelly, for being so open and honest about something so deeply challenging. It was a privilege talking with you.

Ever wondered why some leaders are always in your social news feed, while others are invisible? For every Richard Branson, there are hundreds without a voice, which is a huge missed opportunity - particularly when you consider leaders are outperforming brands when it comes to social media impact. Look in your Linkedin news feed. My guess is you follow more people than you do brand pages. How then do you go about harnessing the power of social media for your brand, or for developing your leadership's positioning? That's where Phil Szomszor from start-up agency Brightside comes in. Phil and his partner Jo have created their unique methodology to help communicators build their leaders' profiles on social media, tell stories and communicate with multiple stakeholders. Want to get a better return from social media, listen in. You might learn a trick or two from a highly experiences comms pro. To connect with Phil: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philszomszor/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/philszomszor

Running a marketing agency is easy, right? Raising a family is a walk in the park too. Well, actually that's a no on both counts. They are challenging in their own right but put them together, and you have a recipe for long hours, difficult decisions and compromise. You would have to be crazy. Say hello to the fab Sophy Duarte. Sophy left her last agency role a couple of years ago, to join forces with a business partner and run B2B agency Element Global. Sophy has never looked back. Listen in for a look under the hood of what it takes to run an agency, raise a family and stay sane. Thanks for sharing your world with me, Sophy. You can reach Sophy here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/sophyd Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophyduarte/ Website: www.element-global.co.uk

The hackneyed expression that people fear public speaking more than death is probably not far from the truth. But, being able to stand up and deliver a compelling presentation is one of the significant enablers of success. It might be selling a product, pitching an idea, reporting to the board, or trying to convince a team to follow you. All of these require you to communicate confidently. That's where Jon Torrens comes in. A former stand up comedian, Jon now spends his time teaching introverts how to communicate. The good news is, I asked Jon to come on the podcast, and the rest is history. Listen in if you would like some top tips for how to smash your next presentation out of the park.

During the Coronavirus lockdown in April 2020, I decided to host an online Q&A for agencies that need ideas, advice and inspiration for how to guide their agency shops through the lockdown. I invited Lena Robinson, an agency veteran from business consultancy FTSQ, to come along and add some expert advice. This is a recording of the event in which Lena and I answer questions ranging from leadership to business development, marketing and how challenger agencies can tackle established big players in the market. I hope it is valuable for those running or managing an agency business.