Agency Dealmasters podcast (Nathan Anibaba)

Nancy Hill, is a legend in the advertising industry being President and CEO of the 4A’s for over 8 years. 

She has personally led the 4A’s work on diversity and inclusion.

For over 30 years she has worked directly with top-tier technology and digital media companies such as Cisco, Motorola, AOL and SiriusXM, to name a few.

Nancy was recognized by Advertising Women of New York with its Changing the Game Award. She was named one of Advertising Age’s 100 Most Influential Women in Advertising History and was honored as a Woman to Watch by Ad Age.

She also served on the board of The Ad Council, The National Advertising Review Council, The Digital Advertising Alliance, Advertising Self-Regulatory Council, and The Marcus Graham Project.

Julianna Richter is a partner at Waypoint Partners, a leading Growth and M&A Advisory firm in the UK and US.  

She has spent the last 20+ years in senior leadership and agency management roles where she has focused on Communications, Operations, Client Management and Business Development. 

Prior to joining Waypoint, Julianna was U.S. Chief Operating Officer at Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR firm, where she led the largest region with 2,700 employees and revenue of close to $500 million.

We discussed:

1. The main problem sets businesses should be thinking about right now
2. How to communicate at this time
3. Sales, marketing and new business
4. How to lead 
5. Coming out stronger

I started by asking her: 

'How should we be thinking about the problem. How are you and your clients thinking about the problem today?

Enjoy the chat.

Nick Wood is the CEO and Creative Director of Syn, an Emmy-winning music agency founded by Nick and Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. Syn specializes in composing and producing original music, sound design and audio post-production for advertising, film and television.

His music has also been featured on HBO's critically acclaimed, Sex and the City. Adverts for Amazon and Coke, as well as the Japanese national football league. 

Listen to Syn New Bands 2022 Playlist here on Apple Music and Spotify.

We talk about:

🔸 How Syn has grown over the last 31 years and key milestones

🔸 How Syn creates music that is effective for client’s brand

🔸 The process of getting great people into the business

🔸 How Syn won their first few clients in the early days

🔸 What he has learnt about business building specifically

Enjoy the conversation

Jonathan Trimble is the CEO of And Rising, a creative partner to the world's fastest growing scale-ups, helping them to become universally loved brands of tomorrow. 

My extra special guest this week is Rory Sutherland, the vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK. it wasn’t actually this week we recorded it some time ago but this is the final part of our interview.

We chopped it into 3 parts because we spoke for such a long time and he packs so much into every minute of the interview, it made sense to break it up just so I could take it all in, reflect, come back to it.

In this part, for instance, we talk about:

1. Why placebos are a good thing and why marketers should use them more in our marketing
2. How we can take a perceived weakness of a product and turn it into a strength. The most famous example of this is probably, Avis, we’re number two so we try harder.
3. We discuss why his book, Alchemy has been so popular with the finance community in America. Probably because they’re all obsessed with rational and irrational decision making.
4. His conversations with the Nobel Prize-winning Daniel Khanneman author of thinking fast and slow. wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on that wall? They talk about the focusing illusion which says, ‘nothing is as important as we think it is, as we are thinking about it. which could be the whole reason why advertising works at all.

I’m not gonna give a big long intro to this, I’m just gonna say, without me keeping you in suspense any further, my conversation with Rory Sutherland.

Joe Hine is a Partner at SI Partners. A global growth consultancy, he supports clients to build value within their businesses and providers M&A advice on high value, cross-border deals.

We discussed:

1. The importance of first securing your business
2. Over-communication to your employees
3. What you business will need to look like post-crisis 
4. Digitally enabled businesses vs legacy businesses challenges
5. How to de-risk your business

I started by asking him, how we should be thinking about the problem right now?

Enjoy the chat. 

Jessica Hodgson is the Chief Client Officer at TIPi Group, a network of specialist agencies across Voice, Performance and Digital who are creating exceptional business results for their clients.

Clients include the likes of Audible, Experian and Go-Compare to name a few. 

We have a deep conversation about the unique mix of agencies they have in the group and how client’s expectations have changed due to the pandemic.

If you are interested in things such as:

🔸 What makes a great client services person

🔸 The role of account management

🔸 What goes into a world-class pitch for clients

🔸 Her perspective on Diversity and inclusion

Then this episode is for you. Enjoy the conversation.

Sally Henderson is an Executive Change Mentor, offering support, advice & help to senior leaders to keep you & your business going during the challenges ahead. 

We discussed:

• How our emotions have changed over the weeks and how to manage them
• How do you lead yourself first before your employees
• Frameworks for dealing with stress, fear and anxiety
• Keeping perspective healthy 
• Prioritising your own needs
• Sally's silver linings.

I started by asking her:

As an Executive Change Mentor, you specialise in creating valuable change and impact to help ambitious growth mindset owners and senior leaders achieve greater success and happiness at work and in life.

Is that a skill set that is needed now more than ever?

Enjoy the chat.

Robert Craven is a first-class, international Keynote business speaker, digital agency expert, author and business growth consultant.

I’ve been reading is books for years. He is a true expert in all things around growing your digital agency. In fact, he has had such an impact on me. Whenever I have a big pitch or presentation I so often refer to his work in Grow your digital agency and Grow your service firm, both excellent books and recommend you get both.

His clients include Google, Barclays, and Nandos to name a few. 

We discuss:

1. What do the high performing agencies do - as found by Google
2. Growing a lifestyle agency business vs growing a big business
3. So many agencies don’t have a sales process, why they are essential to improving your results and how to create one.
4. Why he advises agencies not to sell.

• We go deep into the conversation about sales and winning new business. He says ‘sales is the best thing you can do with your clothes on’.
• How most agencies don’t understand sales and marketing themselves. He has some tough words for agencies.
• He really doesn’t like RFPs, the best approach is a proactive sales one. And How to get people to follow you by becoming an expert.

This is just a masterclass in agency growth.

Enjoy the chat. 

Paul Frampton is a customer & People-focused tech & marketing leader.

He is the President of the marketing consultancy and agency: Control v Exposed (CvE), which advises brands on Media Operating models, Martech/Data strategy & ‘Right Housing’ alongside providing data-driven activation and execution for all addressable media channels.

Paul is also the host of the ‘Time for a Reset’ podcast.

As well as being the former CEO of Havas Group in the U.K. & Ireland with 950 people and £85m revenue. He became EMEA CEO for disruptive B2B2C travel tech startup hi Inc (formerly Tink Labs) backed by Foxconn and Softbank.

Alex Bennett Grant is the Founder and CEO of We Are Pi, a Creative Innovation Consultancy founded on international Pi day. 

He has won many awards including, Ad Age 40 Under 40, They have been Campaign Global Agency of The Year finalist 2021, Ad Age & Creative Pool Small Agency of The Year 2018, 2019 and 2020.

This is episode 3 of "The Independent Voice' series where we spotlight independent marketing agency leaders who are leading their clients with duty and purpose while creating effective marketing for the biggest global brands around.

We talk about:

🔸 The link between diversity and innovation

🔸 Starting a business in a global financial crisis

🔸 How We Are Pi creates a positive social impact

🔸 Setting up We Are Pi in Amsterdam

Enjoy the conversation 

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is brought to you by Worldwide Partners

Learn more about Worldwide Partners at https://www.worldwidepartners.com/

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Adam Tuckwell is the Commercial Director at Mobas, the Brand Transformation Agency, leading marketing campaigns for a variety of national and international clients.

Adam is also the co-founder of PRHub, a regional network of PR professionals in the East of England and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of PR.

We discuss:

1. The culture within Mobas that helps them in a crisis
2. Which agencies will struggle most at this time and what can they do about it?
3. How do we help people not suited to remote working?
4. The Five ways business leaders can help their stakeholders
5. What is Mobas doing?
6. Adam's silver linings

I started by asking him to explain his comment:

‘The focus for agency leaders at any time of crisis typically centers around three Areas: retaining projects, delivering effective and profitable projects and managing cashflow'.

Enjoy the chat.

My extra special guest this week is Nick Cooke. He is the co-founder of The Goat.

They are the 4th fastest growing agency in the world as named by Adweek in 2019.

In 4 years they have generated 20 million turnover, they have 120 employees, and the average age of everyone is 24.

Nick is one of the ancient ones at 30 years old. If you are at all interested in:

• Influencer marketing
• social media
• Platform trends
• Agency Growth
• Creating campaigns that deliver tremendous value

This is an absolute masterclass in all of that.

They started on a shoestring, sharing a co-working space and in 4 years grew it to 20 million and 120 employees and have clients like FIFA and UBER.

Nick tells the story of how they won their first huge client wins, New Look, and how they achieved milestones that propelled their growth. 

We go deep into the weeds about what’s happening with influencer marketing at the moment.

We discussed the massive shift in attention and budget from TV to social.

We talked about where we are with social media platforms. How worried Instagram about platforms like of Tik Tok. 

Enjoy the chat. 

Daniel de la Cruz is the Founder and Chief Learner at Polymensa helping agencies build their advisory boards. He has extensive experience working with agencies of all shapes and sizes across the country.

Polymensa is your n̶o̶n̶-̶e̶x̶e̶c̶u̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ non-ego board of advisors for your agency. Specially designed for agencies with 20 - 50 employees and agency founders who have never worked in an agency before or at the agency board director level.

We talk about:

🔸The main problems clients have and how Polymensa helps solve them

🔸How agencies should win new business and structure their teams

🔸How agency owners can best divide their time

🔸What makes Polymensa different to other advisors out there helping agencies

Enjoy the conversation

Deepa Shah is a rockstar in the world of corporate finance for creative businesses, having worked within two of the largest global advertising holding groups in the world.

she was the CFO for Omnicom Emea and Apac for 13 years before becoming CFO for Publicis Sapient.

She’s got an incredible history of being a tremendously successful financial advisor to agencies in a number of different areas. Incredibly knowledgeable about the sort of thinking that has generated a lot of money for creative businesses of all shapes and sizes. She’s pretty much held every role in finance its possible to hold.

This is actionable advice from an award-winning veteran in agency land. It’s about taking already solid working businesses and making them that much better and when you hear some of the businesses she’s been involved with you will really understand this.

She talks about her initial blindness to the disparity of minorities and women for a long time because she was so head down focused on her own work but when she finally realised the problem she had to do something about it.

If you are remotely interested in:

1. How to grow your bottom line
2. How to make your business stronger to wether COVID 19
3. Diversity and inclusion of women and minorities in the creative space.

Then you will find this conversation absolutely fascinating so without me keeping you in suspense any further, my conversation with Deepa Shah.

Andy Nairn is a Founding Partner at Lucky Generals, one of the most awarded and revered Ad agencies in the world. 

Campaign Magazine has named Andy the No.1 planner in the UK and one of the top 10 in the world. He has won more IPA Effectiveness Awards than any other planner, including 2005, 2007 and a 2010 Grand Prix. 

He is now a Fellow in 2010 and the IPA has named him one of the inaugural members of their Effectiveness Hall of Fame. Andy has created impactful work at AMV BBDO, RKCR/Y&R, Goodby Silverstein and MCBD.

Clients include Amazon, Yorkshire Tea, Zoopla, Alpro, Co-Op, to name a few. 

Andy is also the author of the new book 'Go Lucky Yourself', which presents 40 ways brands can stack luck in their favour.

Abeed Janmohamed is the founder and Director at VOGL. He is an experienced C-Level Executive & Board Member with a demonstrable history of working with startups and high growth businesses. 

He has extensive experience in Business Development, Revenue Operations, Commercial Strategy, Pricing and Investment Strategy. Experience across AdTech, Martech, Blockchain, IOT, Sport Sponsorship and Information/Data Security.

We discuss:

🔸How to value a business
🔸Who the best buyers are out there
🔸How to build a team
🔸The power of data to transform businesses.
🔸How to ensure the future growth of your business 

Enjoy the chat

Judith Niederschelp is the CEO at Demand Studio, they run a unique and global approach to planning, implementing and delivering integrated demand acceleration solutions. 

Previously Judith was Managing Director at Harte Hanks and Aberdeen Group and is a guest lecturer at Warwick business school.

We talk about:

🔸 How the best B2B businesses win new customers and grow

🔸 Using intent data to drive commercial outcomes

🔸 How to successfully measure advertising impact

🔸 Overcoming the challenge of growth for early-stage and established businesses

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Andy Nairn is a Founding Partner at Lucky Generals, one of the most awarded and revered Ad agencies in the world. 

Campaign Magazine has named Andy the No.1 planner in the UK and one of the top 10 in the world. He has won more IPA Effectiveness Awards than any other planner, including 2005, 2007 and a 2010 Grand Prix. 

He is now a Fellow in 2010 and the IPA has named him one of the inaugural members of their Effectiveness Hall of Fame. Andy has created impactful work at AMV BBDO, RKCR/Y&R, Goodby Silverstein and MCBD.

Clients include Amazon, Yorkshire Tea, Zoopla, Alpro, Co-Op, to name a few. 

Andy is also the author of the new book 'Go Luck Yourself', which presents 40 ways brands can stack luck in their favour.

We talk about:

🔸How Lucky Generals stacked the odds in their favour to become a leading agency

🔸How to turn your agency's misfortune into fortune

🔸How to practice being lucky

🔸How to spot opportunities in places where you least expect them

Enjoy the conversation.

Book your tickets for 7 priorities for rapid profitability and cost reductions for agencies

Joe Hine is a Partner at SI Partners Global

He has been involved some of the biggest deals in the creative services space.

He was involved in the sale of Velocity Partners' stake to Next 15. The sale or 'All of us to BCG' and the sale of Market Gravity to Deloitte.

He is uniquely qualified to talk about the M&A experience in 2020.

With the FT and other publications in the summer talking about lockdowns in global dealmaking, Joe’s firm has seen the opposite.

They’ve gone to market 8 times since March, all have been achieved without face to face meetings.

This is just a masterclass in all things concerning dealmaking for creative services firms.

If you’re interested in anything to do with M&A in during COVID-19 then this is the podcast for you.

Enjoy the chat.

Book your tickets for 7 priorities for rapid profitability and cost reductions for agencies

Libby Brockhoff is CoFounder /Creative Director at Odysseus Arms, an award-winning independent ad agency that provides creativity and brand innovation for the modern CMO. 

Libby was named by Campaign magazine as one of the most influential advertising women in the past. Clients include The Body Shop, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, Capital One and Amazon to name a few. 

She also co-founded Mother in 1996, one of the world’s most respected, independent creative companies in the world. 

This is episode 4 of "The Independent Voice' series where we spotlight independent marketing agency leaders who are leading their clients with duty and purpose while creating effective marketing for the biggest global brands around.

We talk about:

🔸 How modern CMOs differ from previous CMOs

🔸 How to stay creative

🔸 The importance of creating an agency with a positive culture

🔸 How to deal with quick growth as a small business

Enjoy the conversation 

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is brought to you by Worldwide Partners

Learn more about Worldwide Partners at https://www.worldwidepartners.com/

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Philip Gosney is Head of Global Marketing and Product Management at Maersk Drilling. 

It’s not often you hear people go from the legal profession into marketing. many would consider it a significant step down. He tells the fascinating story of how he went from being a lowly lawyer at the company to now running global marketing for Maersk, the multibillion pound drilling company. 

So it’s really impressive that he has since gone on to run some of the most impactful, demand and Account Based marketing campaigns that are outperforming all expectations. 

This is just a masterclass on ABM and all things account targeting.

Stick around to the end of the show to hear my discussion with Thomas Lind, Chief Sales officer at Accountinsight reflecting on my conversation with Philip, ABM and Account targeting.

If you are interested in anything to do with:

1. ABM
2. B2B marketing 
3. How to choose the right agency partner 
4. The business of Maersk Drilling, a really fascinating business.

You will find this conversation absolutely fascinating.

Charles has had a 30-year career in advertising. He initially wanted to be a 'suit' in any of the big ad agencies. But they all turned him down; repeatedly. Eventually, a small London agency, Connell May & Steavenson, offered him a job in the media department. He took it.

From there he did get his 'big agency' break and joined Young & Rubicam. By the time WPP acquired Y&R in 2000, Charles was their EMEA Media Director.

In WPP media was fully spun-out of the ad agencies and MEC (now Wavemaker) was born. Charles was the Global CEO of MEC for 14 years, responsible for 5000 people across 80 markets. He did that role for 7 years based in New York and for 7 in London. Over that time MEC quadrupled in size and became a $1 billion business and one of the world's top 5 media agencies. Charles was a founding member of GroupM. He left WPP in June 2017.

Daniel De La Cruz is the Founder and Chief Learner at Polymensa helping agencies build their advisory boards. He has extensive experience working with agencies of all shapes and sizes across the country.

Polymensa is your n̶o̶n̶-̶e̶x̶e̶c̶u̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ non-ego board of advisors for your agency. Specially designed for agencies with 20 - 50 employees and agency founders who have never worked in an agency before or at the agency board director level.

Philip Gosney is Head of Global Marketing and Product Management at Maersk Drilling. He has a background in law before moving over to marketing.

Maersk Drilling supports global oil and gas production by providing high-efficiency drilling services to oil companies around the world. Their fleet of 23 drilling rigs is among the youngest in the industry and ensures the highest level of safety. 

They have over 3,200 highly skilled employees operating state-of-the-art drilling rigs and have done so for 40 years operating in some of the most challenging environments on the planet.

Sandy Lindsay is the Chair of Tangerine comms, One of the UK’s leading integrated communication consultancies. She’s also the Non-executive director for many tech and not for-profit businesses. She’s involved in over 10 businesses in some capacity.

Sandy was honored in the Queen's birthday list of 2015 for services to business and young people. The same year also saw Sandy named North West Director of the Year (SME) and Highly Commended in the same award, nationally, by the Institute of Directors.

She is a national Ambassador for Apprenticeships, Vice Chair of Forever Manchester and on the Business Leadership Council of TeachFirst in the North West. She chairs skills groups for the IoD and the North West Business Leadership Team and is Vice Chair of the latter. She is a NED of Northcoders, a leading coding Bootcamp and a Board Adviser to Flock, a culture (future SAS) start up.

We discuss:

1. The interesting ways tech businesses are pivoting 
2. How business when we come out of this
3. The opportunity within the crisis
4. Leadership
5. How she is staying grounded at this time? 
6. Sandy's Silver linings

Enjoy the chat.

Simon Corbett is the Founder and CEO of The Jargon Group, a digital-first international media, marketing and corporate communications business. They have over 70 retained clients, including Facebook. 

The group owns a number of market-leading brands that provide public relations and media services to brands in ad:tech, cloud, mobile, big data, retail, fashion and automotive.

Before Jargon, Simon spent over ten years at notable agencies, including WeberShandwick, Porter Novelli and Edelman.

We talk about:

🔸 The founding story of the agency and the major milestones

🔸 How the best brands in the world approach PR and profile raising

🔸 What has changed in the ways brands get PR now

🔸 How the agency has refined/developed their recruitment process

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest, Stuart Bradbury is the Managing Director of Avantgarde. 

If you are at all interested in how to create world class global brand experiences for the likes of Mercedes/BMW, Porsche, Samsung and other global brands then this is the podcast for you. 

They worked with Samsung on the Olympic torch relays for London 2012. Where they had a Million of people in the streets with the torch. 

Worked for Porsche at Le Mans.

1. We discuss the highs and lows of winning new business. 
2. Growing a pioneering global brand experience agency
3. His hiring process
4. How to expand internationally, how to do it and the pros and the cons.

Enjoy the chat.

Kathleen Saxton is the Founder of The Lighthouse Company with offices in London and New York. Their goal is to work with the most talented leaders globally within the Media, Marketing and Advertising sector. They build Superteams for their clients and pioneer new talent management. 

Clients include:

Havas, Engine and Channel 4 to name a few. 

She is also the co-founder and Chair of the Advisory Council for Advertising Week Europe, the leading Advertising event now planning it's 8th year in London.

Kathleen is also a qualified psychotherapist and Founder of Psyched Global. She brings positive transformational psychotherapy into corporate boardrooms.

If you are remotely interested in:

1. Media and marketing
2. Executive leadership
3. The mindset of high achieving CEOs
4. Having a single-minded proposition
5. Changing the recruitment and headhunting industry 
6. Empathetic leadership
7. Running and growing Advertising Week Europe

Then this is the podcast for you.

Enjoy the chat. 

Colin Campbell Austin is the co-founder of MenTall, a socially responsible organisation focusing on the issues surrounding mental health, diversity and inclusivity from the male perspective. 

With a focus on training and development in the workplace as well as collaboration with other socially responsible businesses focusing on other social issues and the strands of diversity, as defined by the UK Government.

We discuss:

1. How Channel 4 benefit from talent and diversity 
2. Diversity and Inclusion at The Telegraph 
3. How to get more inclusive businesses 
4. Blockers and how to overcome them
5. Why he doesn't like the word 'Diversity'
6. Colin's silver linings 

Enjoy the chat

Register for my ClientSide webinar Wednesday 9th December 3pm:

Will B2B sales ever be the same again?

Guests include

1. Brent Adamson - VP at Gartner & author of Challenger Sale and Challenger Customer 
2. Marie Bergfelt - Head of Marketing Portfolio & Communications at BOBST
3. Geoff Phillips - Former Head of Marketing at Sage

Tamara Littleton is the founder and CEO of The Social Element. They are a 300 person global social media agency providing social media solutions to some of the world’s biggest brands including Diageo, Toyota, Mondelēz, HSBC and Nissan. 

She founded the company in 2002, pre Facebook.  By 2017, they had become the largest independent social media agency with the biggest global reach of anyone in this space.

She also runs sister company Polpeo, that provides a unique crisis management platform.

We discuss:

1. Building first online communities
2. Bootstrapping a 300 person agency 
3. "The Social Dilemma"
4. Crisis management for brands 

Enjoy the chat

Nik Govier is the founder and CEO of Blurred. 

In January 2019 Blurred was named PR Week’s #1 ‘ONE TO WATCH’ FOR 2019. Within a few short months it's secured a number of major global clients, focusing on work which embraces the blurring of the lines between corporate / consumer and internal/external comms. 

We discussed:

1. The importance of core values for decision making at this time
2. How clients are responding 
3. Treating people like human beings 
4. Keeping the energy of her team-high
5. How to think about sales and new business
6. Nik's silver linings

She is a previous guest of the show. In our last conversation, the focus was on core values and how they should become our north star at all times. This is especially valid now. I asked her to talk about the role your core values play in your life at this time?

Enjoy the chat.

Chris Kemp is the owner of Ingenuity, a new business consultancy for agencies and brands, specialising in lead generation, new business events, pitch management, brand partnerships, PR and content. 

Agency clients include BBH, MCcann, Weber Shandwick and they have also worked with a number of  leading brands, including Sainsbury’s, EE, Amazon, Aldi, Nestle, Loriel, SKY, Wilkinson and Coca-Cola.

We discuss:

🔸 How agencies win new business today
🔸 What brands are looking for in an agency partner
🔸 Running events in a pandemic
🔸 Agency specialisms & disciplines

Enjoy the chat

Andrew Wilkie is a board Director at Touch Associates.

He spent around 20 years at Saatchi and Saatchi and became Managing Director at GUM the branded content division creating some breathtaking films, TV documentaries, events and music.

He started his career when advertising was still adverting, not the watered down version we have today. He started in the industry in 89 when the Berlin Wall came down and worked at the legendary Saatchi and Saatchi when it felt like nothing was impossible and you were only limited by the power of your creativity.

This is a masterclass on:

🔸 Branding

🔸 Finding a brands place in the world

🔸 Diversification due to covid

🔸 The evolution of live events in lockdowns

🔸 The importance of bravery to create truly great work

This was just just a great conversation from someone who has seen it all when it comes to branding and creative work. It was such a pleasure speaking with him. Just such a down to earth, funny and charming guy. 

Enjoy the chat

Perrine Farque, is the author of 'Inclusion', entrepreneur, keynote speaker and inclusion expert who empowers leaders to leverage diversity as their competitive advantage.

Perrine was nominated as one of the TOP 50 most influential UK Tech women. She inspires and motivates leadership teams to embrace diversity and inclusion. As well as helping attract and retain top diverse talent.

Perrine has worked with global leading companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and many others.

Kevin Sugrue is currently a consultant for Similarweb, he helps Agencies to differentiate their client’s brands, build attention and preference using Paid, Owned & Earned media. Kevin works across both strategy and insight; guiding more effective marketing.

At IPG Mediabrands he worked with clients such as Amazon, ExxonMobil, Lego, Lockheed Martin, Spotify, Tata Communications, Unilever and UPS. 

He has also worked at Dentsu, Millward Brown and Bates Worldwide. His experience includes work for No.10 Downing Street,  BBC Worldwide, Vodafone, Courvoisier Cognac, Kellogg's, Microsoft and Peugeot to name a few.

We talk about:

🔸Using consumer behaviour to provide a strategic advantage

🔸The principles of delivering long term growth for consumer brands

🔸Data science vs the big creative idea

🔸The winners, losers and missed opportunities within the pandemic

🔸The importance of data and targeting audiences

Enjoy the conversation

Ricky Abbott is the President of Americas for Transmission. He works with clients across the technology sphere to help them link inbound, outbound, and marketing technology together to unify their marketing activity and identify the value it's delivering.

He has worked with many large fortune 500 brands to build true revenue-generating marketing engines, whether that's combining brand with demand-gen or creating an account-based approach.

Welcome to another episode of Agency Dealmasrters, where we're excited to dive into the ins and outs of agency expansion, leadership, and personal development with our special guest, Paul O'Malley, CEO of Fox Agency North America.

Prepare to be captivated as we discuss the intricacies of agency culture, the vital importance of team individuality, and the enthralling journey of self-discovery that led Paul from a high-pressure career to the world of photography and literature— and back into the agency life with a renewed perspective.

 We discuss: 

• Overcoming challenges in new markets and different cultures
• Debating long-term career growth decisions
• Understanding and catering to the specific needs of the US market
• Value of empathy and supportive relationships
• Misconceptions about staff caring for profitability

Take part in the BenchPress agency survey 2021

wowco.uk/benchpress2021

benchpress.uk.com 

Katy Howell is the CEO of immediate future. 

She has run the company for almost 17 years where everything they do is underpinned with social data. Campaigns are built around four main skills to break the social boring:

If you are interested in anything to do with:

🔸 Social media

🔸 The issues that divide us

🔸 How to spot trends coming

🔸 The rollercoaster of building an agency over 20 years

We also discuss diversity and inclusion in the agency community, after the murder of George Floyd and a lot of people were posting black squares as a show of support, she went the other way and posted the most emotional and passionate video on Linkedin that was so real, bold and quite vulnerable for any agency owner.

It got a lot of support on social but really scary to put yourself out there as an independent business owner. We had a deep honest conversation about the race and the challenges that affect us in the marketing industry.

She goes from winning Sony EMI for 1.5 million to the 2008 crash. She talks about her mistakes working too much on the business and not enough on family, over reliance on one client.

This is truly a masterclass in building an Indi businesses over what is now a 20 year career.

Enjoy the chat! 

Take part in the BenchPress agency survey 2021

wowco.uk/benchpress2021

benchpress.uk.com 

Chris Hirst is Global CEO of Havas Creative – a multi-disciplinary marketing services group.

After a decade in CEO positions, he has a proven track record of leading transformation. He believes in the principles of an open culture – where people are given permission to take risks and make mistakes. 

His book, No Bullsh*t Leadership was the  Business Book Awards Winner for 2020.

This week's episode of Agency Dealmasters is sponsored by Accountinsight 

Built for B2B marketers. Managed by B2B agencies AccountInsight helps you deliver targeted, tailored ads to high-value companies. Because today’s B2B buyers decide digitally, and in teams of up to 40 people. You’re no longer marketing to one person, you’re marketing to whole accounts. That’s why smarter B2B marketers use Account Based Advertising. 

Nancy Hill, is a legend in the advertising industry being President and CEO of the 4A’s for over 8 years. 

She has personally led the 4A’s work on diversity and inclusion.

For over 30 years she has worked directly with top-tier technology and digital media companies such as Cisco, Motorola, AOL and SiriusXM, to name a few.

Nancy was recognized by Advertising Women of New York with its Changing the Game Award. She was named one of Advertising Age’s 100 Most Influential Women in Advertising History and was honored as a Woman to Watch by Ad Age.

She also served on the board of The Ad Council, The National Advertising Review Council, The Digital Advertising Alliance, Advertising Self-Regulatory Council, and The Marcus Graham Project.

Natalia Chaban is the Digital Performance & Technology Director at Mediacom. Campaign’s media agency of the decade. 

She has over 15 years of experience in advertising technology & innovation. As well as a deep understanding of digital media platforms, data platforms, digital media analytics, data warehousing and emerging digital technologies. 

Learn more about our episode sponsor at Account Insight.ai

We talk about:

🔸 Tight targeting and brand loyalty vs reach and building mass audiences

🔸 Should brands rely on owned and earned media without using paid?

🔸 How to measure advertising effectiveness

🔸 The importance of data and the future of targeted advertising

Enjoy the conversation

Luke Bozeat is the COO of MediaCom, he has over 20 years of experience working in media and communications. He has launched products, refreshed brands, led integrated agency teams and driven communication strategies across a vast array of areas from cars, booze, charities, finance to kids TV, hairdryers and holidays.

He specialises in Media planning, Communication planning, Advertising, Agency integration, Social media.

We talk about everything from, what the media landscape looks like today, how MediaCom, help brands see the bigger picture by offering advice that can sometimes end up taking money out of their own pockets.

You may remember the campaign for the launch of Playstation 5 which was enormous and almost broke the internet last year. They were behind that. This is absolutely a must listen to conversation with a marketing leader who had a small part in building the biggest media agency in the world.

We talk about what factors led it becoming the Goliath it is today.

Enjoy the chat.

________________________________________________________________________________

This week’s episode of Agency Dealmasters is sponsored by Accountinsight

Built for B2B marketers. Managed by B2B agencies

Nominated Emerging Vendor of the Year at the B2B Marketing 2021 Martech Awards.

AccountInsight helps you deliver targeted, tailored ads to high-value companies. Today’s B2B buyers decide digitally, and in teams of up to 40 people.You’re no longer marketing to one person, you’re marketing to whole accounts. That’s why smarter B2B marketers use Account Based Advertising.

Felix Velarde is the author of the new book: Scale at Speed. He started one of the world’s first web design agencies, then had a high-profile twenty-year career as a serial entrepreneur CEO.

In 2014 he retired as CEO of a marketing services group and headed off to Burning Man, he came back and started helping businesses scale fast. Many have gone on to become market leaders and several have sold, making their owners millions.

Welcoming him back for the 3rd time on the show.

We talk about:

🔸 How to scale your business at speed!

🔸 The importance of net profit

🔸 How 2Y3X can triple the size of your business

🔸 Why delegation is vital to growth

🔸 The significance of core values and how to set them

Sharing more fascinating insight from Felix Velarde. Enjoy the chat.

Ben Scoggins is the managing director of Organic Agency.

He spent the early part of his career in some of the most prestigious agencies in the world. Y&R, DDB and Ogilvy. He now runs organic a 50 person agency in Exeter south Devon and delivers fantastic work for clients like HSBC, Argos and the Body Shop, just go down the list of iconic brands.

He spent the first few months in the role narrowing in on a compelling client proposition, developing the culture and hiring amazing talent. which we discuss at length because its such a crucial part of any agency’s value.

We talk about everything from:

The differences in cultures when he interviewed for BBH, Abbott mead Vickers (AMV), and BNP now Adam and Eve DDB. it was fascinating to hear how different they were from each other and how the agency’s tone and culture is set not so much by the leadership team or the employees but actually your client. because the culture your client has flows both ways.

We talked about his hiring strategy:

The 5 hours on a train test. Is this someone you want to sit next to on a train for 5 hours?

His time at one the Meccas of agencies, Ogilvy. Going from an agency of 300 people in Ogilvy to Red Bee Creative an agency with just 50 people.

we talked about whether or not we need to be in London anymore? the difference between Regional agencies and London agencies in terms of attracting clients and talent.

If you are at all interested in any of those things then you will enjoy the conversation. 

Enjoy the chat.

Michael Gietzen is the Group Managing Director for Identity, one of the UK’s most successful event agencies. He leads a team that delivers extraordinary events for world governments and global brands.  

With a team of over 100 people, they deliver events for some of the biggest brands around, such as Apple, Siemens, Leica, Harley-Davidson, New Balance, Formula E, NATO and Her Majesty’s Government. Identity is now on course to turnover £150 million this year.

We talk about:

🔸The journey and evolution of Identity

🔸How rebranding during the pandemic has impacted the company

🔸The insight he gained through his financial career

🔸A breakdown of the events industry

🔸What makes a successful event

Enjoy the conversation.

Kimi Gilbert is the Managing Partner for the Future Factory. They are one of the UK’s leading business development consultancies. They work with Creative, Comms and Digital agencies.

With a mix of lead generation, board level coaching, market insights and consultancy, they help to make the future more predictable for agency Owners, Founders and Directors.

Adetunji Paul is the founder of studio BLVCK, a content company, and community committed to celebrating the untold stories of African artists, makers, and all-around creatives. 

He has an excellent new podcast called Bantu, a bi-monthly podcast where he tells stories of talented Africans.

Adetunji talks about the challenges Africa faces with income inequality, infrastructure and inept leadership.

But while these are real challenges, there is a generation of young Africans who see the world very differently from older generations of leaders and emphasize the arts and African creativity.

If you are interested in the African creative landscape and what that might mean for your business, you will love this conversation.

Raffaele Apostoliti is the President & CEO at Expandi Group. They are one of the biggest and most respected B2B agencies in the world.

They serve brands like Microsoft, Microfocus, Samsung, IBM and Google to name a few.

They employ more than 400 staff in marketing and operations and have a mission is to grow their clients business by building data-driven, performance-led and sales-oriented marketing programs.

This is a masterclass in all things B2B marketing.

• He talks about how their services evolved as technology started eating the world and clients asked for more data and measurability.
• We discuss what clients are asking for these days
• How they are investing in their own technology by building their own analytics platform
• We talk about what the next stage in their growth is.

His energy and vision for the future of technology is fascinating and really energising. 

We go really deep into data and the future of creative ideas, brand building and so much more.

Enjoy the chat.

Perrine Farque, is the author of 'Inclusion', entrepreneur, keynote speaker and inclusion expert who empowers leaders to leverage diversity as their competitive advantage.

Perrine was nominated as one of the TOP 50 most influential UK Tech women. She inspires and motivates leadership teams to embrace diversity and inclusion. As well as helping attract and retain top diverse talent.

Perrine has worked with global leading companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, IBM and many others.

We discuss:

🔸Why inclusion is the ultimate secret for an organisation's success

🔸How agencies can create true inclusion within their workspace

🔸What is an inclusive leader and how can we become better ones

🔸The difference between 'Culture fit' & 'Culture add'

Enjoy the conversation.

Claude Auchu is the CEO at lg2, Canada’s largest independent agency. Ig2 is inspiring people to reimagine how organisations can grow, shape culture and succeed in a sustainable manner.

This is episode 2 of "The Independent Voice' series where we spotlight independent marketing agency leaders who are leading their clients with duty and purpose while creating effective marketing for the biggest global brands around.

We talk about:

🔸 How he became the CEO of Canada's largest independent agency

🔸 Being a purpose-led agency and creating a positive impact

🔸 Whether we can really define the 'truth'

🔸 The duty and responsibility of creative agencies

Enjoy the conversation



Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is brought to you by Worldwide Partners

Learn more about Worldwide Partners at https://www.worldwidepartners.com/

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Felix Velarde works with action-oriented digital, marketing and creative agency owners and tech startups.

Using a highly effective process to scale up, drive up profits and increase exit value, and cutting to critical issues to deliver value fast, the 2Y3X programme generates a huge ROI and can add millions to both revenue and sale value.

We discussed:

1. The short, medium and long term implications of the situation
2. How to deliver value to your clients at this point
3. What the really good agencies do in a recession

I started by asking him, what questions are his clients most concerned about at the moment?

enjoy the chat.

James Cross is a parter at the Global Law firm K&L Gates.

He is a deal junkie and loves the rush of M&A. He loves helping founders and owners sell their businesses and build some close and long-lasting relationships in the process.

He spent 7 years at Reed Smith where he helped build out their private equity practice

The creative services space is generally not the most attractive to investors because they like things like recurring revenue, low customer concentration, less reliance on individuals generating revenue for the company.

But for those investors that really get the creative services space, they seem massive opportunities for the right kinds of businesses.

We discuss all things agency and creative services but also other sectors outside creative services that are attractive to investors.

Data business in the food sector, Logistics, Food delivery, edtec, Medtech, Fintech. And Facilities management businesses and cleaning businesses are now sexy.

If you are remotely interested in:

1. What buyers are looking for when buying creative services businesses
2. How to build value back into your agency because of the losses from COVID 19.
3. The good and the bad sides of selling your business

Then this is the conversation for you.

Enjoy the chat

Andre Bloch is the Founder and Non Executive Director of Frank. They are one of the UK’s most respected and award winning PR agencies. Clients include 20th Century Fox, Aldi, Burger King, Coca Cola.  

We talk about how he built Frank from the early days of 2000 to where they are now in 2021 with globally recognised brands, too many agency awards to mention. 

We talk about:

1. What factors go into making PR campaigns successful.
2. The metrics he uses to measure the health of his agency
3. His process of recruiting top talent. 

This is just an absolute masterclass in business building, not just agency building. Andrew has such a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of successful businesses, you feel he could go into any industry or market and replicate the same success or even more. 

Did I mention, he was also Lord Sugar’s PR advisor for over 20 years, and he revels some things about Lord Sugar many people would be surprised by I think.

He’s got a string of achievements as long as his arm and non of the hubris or ego that sometimes goes with great achievements. 

If you are interested in agency growth, new business, PR, talk-ability, M&A, then you will find this conversation to be absolutely fascinating, so 

Adam Graham is Founder and Managing Director at Gray Matters and BD Matters, they work with agency owners and their teams to attract and win new business. 

Adam was responsible for winning a game-changing piece of business for Vizeum when they won the Camelot account for £50m. He has also held business development roles at RAPP, Isobar and Havas Group before starting Gray Matters.

We talk about:

🔸 How BD Matters helps agency owners win new business

🔸 The key to effective sales and the best way to sell

🔸 How agencies should prospect for new business

🔸 Why sales has a bad reputation and what can be done about it

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Christopher Engman is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Megadeals Advisory. He is the father of ABM and he invented IP targeting.

He’s been involved in hundreds of ABM campaigns for Fortune 500 businesses.

His methodology, Megadeals and his book and podcast by the same name is a playbook of how to do ABM properly and sell to complex organisations.

We talked about:

🔸 What led to Megadeals

🔸 How B2B marketing has evolved

🔸 How to run effective ABM campaigns

I came out of the conversation significantly wiser and generally more well versed in ABM and how to sell multibillion-pound deals.

If you only listen to one Agency Dealmasters episode this year, this is the one for you.

Abeed Janmohamed is the founder and Director at VOGL. He is an experienced C-Level Executive & Board Member with a demonstrable history of working with startups and high growth businesses.

He has extensive experience in Business Development, Revenue Operations, Commercial Strategy, Pricing and Investment Strategy. Experience across AdTech, Martech, Blockchain, IOT, Sport Sponsorship and Information/Data Security.

Andrew Bloch is a Non-Executive Director, Board advisor and consultant to several leading agencies and brands. 

He founded Frank, one of the UK’s most respected and award-winning consumer PR agencies. 

He’s been the official spokesperson and PR advisor to Lord Sugar for over 20 years and has handled the PR for all The Apprentice winners and their companies since the show started in 2005.

Andrew is listed in the ‘PR Week Power Book'​ – 'The Definitive Guide To The Most Influential People in PR’ and is ranked as the most influential PR person on Twitter.

In 2021, he was named one of the Top Ten Most Influential PR people by Buzz Sumo.

This show is dedicated to the stories and the lessons of ambitious agency builders of all types by examining their history, competitive advantage and what makes them tick.

Brought to you by Bridge, The growth focused podcast agency.

Learn how Bridge can connect you with your target clients at bridgegrowth.org

Tiffani Bova is the Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce.

Her book: Growth IQ has been translated into seven languages, it was named a Wall Street Journal Bestseller and one of the top 5 books in Leadership and Strategy. 

She’s been named as one of the “Most Powerful and Influential Women in California”. 

She writes for HBR, Forbes and has been featured in articles from Bloomberg, The WSJ, Economist, Hoovers and USA Today.

We talk about:

🔸Choosing the right growth path for your company

🔸The 10 growth paths to predictable growth

🔸How Salesforce uses the ‘optimise sales' strategy to boost growth

🔸Her book 'Growth IQ'- The best ways to drive your company's growth

Enjoy the conversation.

Giulia Watson is the Head of the Change Accelerator at Revolt, helping NGOs, activists and changemakers supercharge their revolutions through the power of branding. Where action and creativity meet to have real impact.

We discussed:

1. Respond, Relieve, Rebuild their manual for action leadership in Covid 19. 
2. Should marketers step back and let the public health professionals and government take the lead?
3. Do brands even have a role to play in this environment?
4. What practical help can brands help with at this time?
5. How do we make sure were being sensitive to the situation and not be opportunistic?
6. Good examples and bad examples from brands
7. Giulia's silver linings

I started by asking her:

Since the start of the crisis, many of our clients have come to you to help them understand how they can take action, and do so with maximum impact and integrity. 

Talk about what some of their toughest challenges are and what advice do you give them?

Enjoy the chat. 

Oliver Yonchev is the co-founder and COO of Flight Story.

Flight Story build resilient retail investor communities around great public companies.

Previously Oliver was Managing Director of Social Chain, a world-leading social media and e-commerce group. Within just 6 years the company grew from a small UK start-up to a $600m+ public company, operating across 7 locations.

For almost a decade, Oliver has been at the forefront of digital marketing and creative services supporting the management teams of Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, TikTok, Twitch, Disney & Uber to name just a few.

We talk about:

🔸Creating successful Social media campaigns

🔸Lessons learned from Social Chain

🔸Social Chain's expansion into the US Market 

🔸Investor relations, public companies and SPACs

Enjoy the conversation.

Chris Averill is an experienced entrepreneur, founder, author, leadership coach and mentor. He built and sold a hugely successful business and now helps others achieve their business goals. 

He founded WAE in 2003, a leading global service design company and sold it in 2016; to become a consultant, advisor and mentor. His new book: Build, Sell, Retire is all about The truth about M&A and demystifying the M&A process. 

We discuss:

🔸How he turned his £1 Million+ dream into reality

🔸The unspoken truths about selling a business

🔸When is the best time to sell your business

🔸How to value your business & find the right price

🔸The significance of self-belief & having a goal

If you are starting a business, growing one or thinking of selling then this conversation is for you.

John Harris is the President and CEO at Worldwide Partners. He manages a network of 70 independent agencies who manage over $5 billion is worldwide advertising revenues. 

He started his career in the beer industry where he learned about marketing, branding and shopper marketing and adversing from the ground up, which gives him a very unique lens with which to view driving demand and growing brands. 

If you are interested in such things as:

🔸 The future of the networks

🔸 The priorities of CMOs

🔸 Advertising and creativity 

🔸 B2B marketing 

We have a deep winding conversation about diversity in our industry and what he is doing about it. 

This is an absolute must listen to conversation with someone who is at the top of his game when it comes to all of the above.

Sophie Coyne and Megan Leppan are the co-founders of Raised by Wolves. A fascinating company at the nexus of corporate internal communications with brand advertising.

Corporate comms for a long time has been stale but Megan and Sophie have big plans to change that by injecting some much-needed life into the space. 

We talk about:

🔸The problems Raised By Wolves solves for customers

🔸How to create effective and creative corporate comms

🔸How corporate communication is evolving

🔸What makes a great account handler

🔸How being a part of LAB Group adds business value

🔸Their process for getting great people into the business

Enjoy the conversation.

Riaz Kanani is the CEO & Founder of Radiate B2B.

He has built global video ad networks that understood user behaviour, launched the first paid for cinematic movie online, exited Digital Oxygen to Silverpop (now IBM), helped build demand generation strategies (B2B) and engagement marketing strategies for companies across the globe. 

Today he is helping to build a better way to do B2B Marketing that increases both average contract values and the speed of closing contracts.

With Radiate, he is using scaled account-based marketing to build awareness and accelerate deals through the pipeline.

Rob Da Costa helps SME agencies increase profits by working with management teams to set strategies and focus on the core activities that will make a difference.

As well as a face to face and online coach, he also offers a group coaching programme: The Self-Running Agency, he is the author of a book by the same name and the host of the agency accelerator podcast.

Jake Stott is the CEO of Hype Partners. Hype Partners are Supercharging Web3 Communities.

In 4 years, they have grown into the leading full-service marketing agency in Web3. With a team of 90+ globally, they have worked with over 110 top-tier blockchain projects. 

We discuss:

🔸 The dynamics and state of the Web3 market

🔸 Will demand meet the supply of the Metaverse

🔸 What are the next businesses to benefit from web 3

🔸 A deeper explanation of the Metaverse and Web3

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

ANTHONY IANNARINO is a highly respected international speaker, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and sales leader specializing in the complex business-to-business (B2B) Sale. Anthony is best known for his work at The Sales Blog, which has helped him gain recognition as a top thought leader in sales strategy.

He has put out some fantastic content recently to help people through this difficult time and we wanted to speak with him to share his ideas with people who may not have come across them because we have found them very useful.

We discussed:

1. What to do when the world is on fire, you say
2. Advice on maintaining our poise
3. Taking care of yourself 
4. Keeping perspective 
5. Making order out of chaos 
6. Anthony's silver linings

I started by asking him to explain a comment from his recent blog post: ‘If you were to boil down the last 20,000 years of Homo sapiens, it would be the story of overcoming the obstacles placed in our way.’ 

Enjoy the chat.

Kate Kallot is the Head of Emerging Areas at NVIDIA.

She builds large complex AI ecosystems and developer communities to drive forward innovation focused on solving real-world problems. She believes in the power of AI to drive social change. Using tech innovation she helps to accelerate economic development in emerging markets.

She has won multiple accolades throughout her career being named Business Insider Top 100 Transformers 2020, VentureBeat Women in AI Rising Star in 2020, the CES ‘Best of Innovation Award’ and the China AI Industry Innovation Alliance ‘Most Remarkable Product Award’ in 2018. 

Sam Budd is the Founder and CEO of Buddy Media Group, an Award-winning digital-first performance marketing agency with a specialist focus on delivering Luxury, Fashion, Alcohol, Hospitality, and Student marketing programs.

Sam was also one of the founding members of Social Chain, the award-winning agency founded by Steven Bartlett.

We talk about:

🔸 What it takes to be successful in the agency world

🔸 Key systems and processes to fall back on

🔸 What he has learned from growing and scaling the company

🔸 The future of Buddy Media

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Hedda Lidgard is the CEO at Frank Valiant, a leading creative agency that specialises in explaining complex things in simple ways. 

They combine storytelling skills and a deep understanding of visual communication with their love for state-of-the-art technology. Clients include giants like Atlas Copco and AstraZeneca. 

We talk about:

🔸 Applying consulting frameworks to the challenge of growing an agency

🔸 What makes successful communications and creative work

🔸 Saying no to clients and making the complex, simple

🔸 The most important metrics to track when growing an agency

🔸 The process for identifying the best people and getting them into the business

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters brought to you by Bridge - Talk to us at Bridgegrowth.org

Sarat Pediredla is the CEO of hedgehog lab, he has grown the company from 3 people in the North East of England in 2011 to around 100 people globally with a major presence in the UK & US.

hedgehog lab has been named #1 globally for mobile app development with analysts Clutch and were named in the Financial Times Top 1000 Fastest-Growing European companies 2 years in a row. They have successfully raised Private Equity funding to scale their growth. 

We talk about:

🔸 Creating a sustainable moat

🔸 Getting out of the commodity trap

🔸 From brain surgery to marketing

🔸 Refining the process of identifying the best people

🔸 Winning "Do or die" pitches



Enjoy the conversation

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Our guest this week is Simon Latarche. We are delighted to announce that Simon has joined Milestone Advisory and will sit alongside Miles Welch as Founding Partner. 

He was CFO of an entrepreneurial Digital SME for nine years, which sold to Publicis Groupe for €416M in 2013. He then went on to become CFO of Publicis.Sapient in the UK before setting up his own Corporate Advisory firm. 

He has significant M&A and Fundraising experience and is an expert on growing companies profitably. He was voted a Top 20 CFO in the TMT sector in 2013 by BDO and studied Financial Strategy at Said Business School.

We talk about:

🔸The state of M&A in the Marketing Services sector

🔸Mistakes that agencies make and how to avoid these

🔸When is the right time to sell an agency, and how to sell for a fair price

🔸The main market buyers and the impact on agencies wanting to sell

🔸Why agencies should consider working with Milestone

Enjoy the conversation.

Mentioned in this episode:

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Michael Scantlebury is the Founder of Impero a modern, independent creative agency - winner of five Agency of the Year Awards.

Impero's clients include Martell Cognac, Ugg shoes, The Volvic water brands at Danone,  Lindt & Sprungli, Havana Club Rum and General Mills.

We discussed:

1. How clients are responding
2. Sales and new business 
3. Supporting employees to keep motivation up
4. Making order out of chaos 
5. Michael's silver linings 

I started by asking him to share what he is thinking about the future as we end another week of this enforced shutdown?

Enjoy the chat.

Doug Kessler is Creative Director, Co-Founder, Velocity Partners. A multi award-winning London-based, B2B content marketing agency. They help their clients develop compelling stories, then drive these stories into the marketplace.

We discuss:

1. What are the most common questions from clients right now.
2. How much do you think life will change after this? 
3. Which brands should be communicating at this time and who shouldn't?
4. What opportunities does this provide for the well run agencies and businesses who will survive and even thrive?
5. Smart businesses won't waste a crisis. This is an opportunity to upgrade operations, run leaner and run more efficiently. discuss.
6. Will we continue in their remote working environments or will we all be yearning to go back to the office?
7. Doug's silver linings.

Enjoy the chat.

Take part in the BenchPress agency survey 2021

wowco.uk/benchpress2021

benchpress.uk.com 

Laurence McCahill is a Co-founder of The Happy Startup School. 

He is on a mission to inspire, empower and connect entrepreneurs and leaders that want to create lives and businesses rich with purpose. 

After running a digital agency for 10 years, Laurence and his co-founder have devoted themselves to realising their vision for The Happy Start-up School creating experiences, programs and an accidental community of like minded people.

Enjoy the chat!

Emma Thompson is the Head of Agency Consumer Brands for Golley Slater. She has over 20 years of marketing agency experience across brand, pharmaceutical, shopper and retail. 

Golley Slater is a 60-year-old integrated national agency. They have over  170 sector specialists and discipline experts and have an average client tenure of 10 years with some of the best in the business including P&G, Coca-Cola, Mitsubishi, The Welsh Government, Npower.

If you are interested in:

🔸 Agency positioning

🔸 Structuring your business

🔸 Talent and recruitment

🔸 Balancing work and family

You will find this conversation to be absolutely fascinating.

Take part in the BenchPress agency survey 2021

wowco.uk/benchpress2021

benchpress.uk.com 

Jonathan Trimble is the CEO of And Rising.

They work with the world’s fastest growing scale-ups, helping them to become universally loved brands of tomorrow.

He has some strong opinions about the future of brands. He says ‘five years from now, we won’t recognise most of the brands we see as universal’.

This is a deep dive conversation into the state of the traditional advertising agency model, why he made the pivot to this new creative capital model.

If you are interested in things such as:

🔸 Creative capital
🔸 Building scale-ups
🔸 The state of advertising and media today
🔸 Venture capital in the agency space

You will love this conversation!

Jane Asscher is the CEO and Founding Partner of 23red, a multi-award-winning purpose-driven agency. 

They develop brands and campaigns that change behaviour for the better and have a positive impact on people’s lives. Their campaigns for leading businesses, charities and government have positively influenced the lives of millions of people. 

This is episode 1 of 'The Independent Voice' series where we spotlight independent marketing agency leaders who are leading their clients with duty and purpose while creating effective marketing for the biggest global brands around.

We talk about:

🔸 Creating purposeful campaigns

🔸 How to influence human behaviour

🔸 How being a woman working in an agency has changed

🔸 How 23red benefits from being in the Worldwide Partners network

Enjoy the conversation

Mentioned in this episode:

This episode is brought to you by Worldwide Partners

Learn more about Worldwide Partners at https://www.worldwidepartners.com/

Agency Dealmasters is brought to you by Bridge

Find out more at Bridgegrowth.org or get in touch by emailing nathan@bridgegrowth.org

Jim Hawker is the co-founder of Threepipe, a multi-award-winning integrated agency working with some of the biggest brands in the world.

This is just a masterclass in how to continuously reinvent yourself and your offering to make sure it’s a relevant and compelling to the client as possible.

They started life as a very well respected PR agency, then transformed its self into a truly digital-first agency as the worlds of PR and SEO began to merge.

He’s been confronted with one challenging situation after then next and although each was gut-wrenching and intractable, he found ways to make sure they emerged stronger from the experience. Whether he knew it or not, that’s stoic philosophy in action.

He’s open about the mistakes he has made, like how they lost business because they pitched really innovative digital strategies to internal people who didn’t have the knowledge or skillset, so they chose a different agency, they felt more comfortable with. It’s a lesson in starting with a lower commitment, then widening the scope of work, take them on a journey.

we also discussed:

1. Media fragmentation
2. Leadership
3. And what clients now expect from agencies

If you are remotely interested in any of those topics then you will absolutely love this conversation.

Register for Proactive Prospecting for agencies 

Get your tickets to How to Triple your profit: the 2Y3X

methodology, 5th March 2y3x.com/event

If you saw the video of the brutal murder of George Floyd recently, you felt saddened and shocked that these things are still happening in 2020.

Our industry has an opportunity to respond to the brutality that is sadly still with us and begin to change things.

Agencies communicate on behalf of brands which means we can actually affect some kind of positive change, but a lot of that change has to begin at home with ourselves.

Diversity and inclusion is still a massive problem in our industry and that’s why my guest this week is Asad Dhunna Founder of the Unmistakables an award-winning consultancy that creates a world of opportunity from diversity.

This interview was recorded before the tragic incidents but i think it’s relevant to release now.

They are:

1. Best new agency as rated by Oystercatchers
2. Start-up agency of the year - The Drum
3. Best in diversity & inclusion - The Drum
4. BAME business of the year - Great British Business Awards

What led him to set up the agency was the idea that to set up a successful business you must either solve the smallest problem for the largest number of people or the biggest problem for only a few people. and diversity is a big problem for a lot of people.

If you are remotely interested in:

Seeing a fairer world for all of us, then you will find this conversation absolutely fascinating.

With so much uncertainty at the moment, many agencies are putting sales and marketing on hold, but that may not be the best approach. 

Robin Bonn runs a specialist management consultancy for agencies called Codefinery, Helping them find their shortest course from good to great.

I asked rob if he can blame agencies for not focusing on sales and new business right now?

enjoy the chat.

Robert is the UK's best-known and sought-after keynote speaker on growing digital agencies.

He also talks on customers: finding, delighting and keeping more and better customers and clients.

We discussed:

1. Which types of creative businesses will survive?
2. How to prepare yourself for the recession to come
3. Reassuring employees 
4. Robert Craven's Silver Linings 

Enjoy

Wale Badamosi-Oyekanmi is the Founder and President of Dare.Win, the international award-winning group offering communication & consulting services to entertainment and content brands. They have recently merged with Sir Martin Sorrell’s Media.Monks.

Clients include Netflix, Spotify, PlayStation, Bacardi Group, Google, YouTube, BMW, Disney, Warner Bros and Zalando to name a few.

Kevin Sugrue is currently a consultant for Similarweb, he helps Agencies to differentiate their client’s brands, build attention and preference using Paid, Owned & Earned media. Kevin works across both strategy and insight; guiding more effective marketing.

At IPG Mediabrands he worked with clients such as Amazon, ExxonMobil, Lego, Lockheed Martin, Spotify, Tata Communications, Unilever and UPS. 

He has also worked at Dentsu, Millward Brown and Bates Worldwide. His experience includes work for No.10 Downing Street,  BBC Worldwide, Vodafone, Courvoisier Cognac, Kellogg's, Microsoft and Peugeot to name a few.

Guy Wieynk is the global CEO of AnalogFolk, a 300 person digital creative agency with offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney.

You may have heard of some of their clients: Nike, Diageo, BT, Tommy, Unilever, go down the list….

He was the former Managing director of AKQA New York then VP of International. He joined the agency when they had just 20 people, opened 10 offices and worked with some of the most iconic brands of the last 20 years. They sold the agency to WPP for only about 500 million.

He then became CEO of Publicis UK where he really had his toughest test to date. working with a portfolio of 5 different brands who had their own way of doing things, didn’t want to play nice, Publicis was losing a lot of money at the time, he says, if it was a private company it would have closed ages ago. and how he turned it around it really a remarkable achievement.

This is really a masterclass is getting people to align around a common vision and using EQ, emotional intelligence, not IQ to turn around a failing company.

If you are remotely interested in:

1. How to turn around a failing business
2. How to win new business
3. The crisis of innovation in marketing
4. Running small agencies to much much larger ones

You will find this conversation to be absolutely fascinating.

Get your tickets to EOS Worldwide is running their first "EOS Launch Event" in London on the 2nd April at The Dorchester.

Jim Houghton has over 25 years of international experience working with and within marketing and communication businesses on corporate finance, including M&A, exit planning, joint ventures, deal structuring, post-merger integration and earnout management.

This is Jim’s second time on the show. He has had an amazing career from his time at Omnicom in the early 2000s, to BDO then to Results international where he advised many leading marketing services businesses. He’s advised on many deals for Waypoint Partners from We Are Social, Headland to 1000 heads.

We talk about:

🔸The right time to sell your agency

🔸How to find a fair price & value your business

🔸The most surprising elements of selling a business

🔸Private Equity & the common misconceptions

🔸Why an agency should consider selling to a PE buyer

🔸The market impact from the pandemic - Are investors more cautious

If you are interested in anything to do with M&A, then this is the podcast for you.

Enjoy the conversation.

Jamie Devlin is responsible for B2B growth at Revolut and was one of the first employees at the business. 

He has a storied background having held senior roles at CitiGroup, Bain and Vodafone. 

Revolut is building the world’s first truly global financial super-app. Their 15 million customers around the world use dozens of Revolut’s products to make more than 100 million transactions a month.

Michael Gietzen is the Group Managing Director for Identity, one of the UK’s most successful event agencies. He leads a team that delivers extraordinary events for world governments and global brands.  

With a team of over 100 people, they deliver events for some of the biggest brands around, such as Apple, Siemens, Leica, Harley-Davidson, New Balance, Formula E, NATO and Her Majesty’s Government. Identity is now on course to turnover £150 million this year.

Take part in the BenchPress agency survey 2021

wowco.uk/benchpress2021

benchpress.uk.com 

Patrick Collister is the former Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather UK.

In 2013 he became creative director of The ZOO, Google's client-facing creative think-tank. He is also the author of How to use innovation and creativity in the workplace.

He is now a Non-exec CD at Ad-Lib. The only UK based Google Creative Marketing Partner. Patrick is also a curator of The Caples Awards.

If you are at all interested in things like:

🔸 Brand building
🔸 Creativity
🔸 And what makes agencies like Ogilvy special

You will love this chat!

Take part in the BenchPress agency survey 2021

wowco.uk/benchpress2021

benchpress.uk.com 

Aaron Ross is the Co-CEO PredictableRevenue.com, keynote speaker, author "Predictable Revenue and From Impossible To Inevitable". He is an inductee to the sales hall of fame and Dad of 9. He now lives in Edinburgh.

If you’re even remotely interested in:

• Sales
• Winning new business
• Getting attention in a crowded marketplace
• Lead generation
• Entrepreneurship
• writing books
• Having 9 children

This is the podcast for you. 

He was the CEO of an unsuccessful company that failed because he didn’t have an understating of sales. He hired a VP of sales and abdicated responsibility instead of delegating.

He went to salesforce so he could learn sales properly and that’s where his career took off, two best selling books later and a multi million pound company. he’s the definition of failing your way to success.

Enjoy the chat.

Bernadette Jiwa is a recognised global authority on business philosophy and the role of identity and story in business, innovation and marketing. She is the author of several best-selling books on marketing and brand storytelling including:

Make your ideas matter, the fortune cookie principle, marketing a love story and her latest book, Story-driven, you don’t need to compete when you know who you are.

It was just an absolute pleasure speaking with her, I've followed her work from afar for a long time. we talk about everything from:

1. How to create stories that move people
2. Creating meaning in people lives
3. How brands like Iceland, Air BnB and Mecca create the best stories we can all learn from.

Seth Godin says she’s one of the greatest marketing thinkers of all time.

If you are at all interested in:

How to create better marketing communications then you are going to find this conversation absolutely fascinating.

David Hieatt is is the Co-Founder of Hiut Denim. He also founded Howies, the outdoor clothing company in 1995 which he later sold to Timberland In 2008.

Howies was cited as the 6th most 'recession-proof' company in the UK at the time. we could all use some of that wisdom right now.

We discuss:

His start in the ad agency world, he got frustrated because he didn’t want to sell sugar water anymore and wanted to do something with a bit more meaning.

The reason why people spend their whole lives making a billion dollars then spending the rest of their lives giving it away is that they didn’t get any meaning from making it in the first place.

We talk about how people get seduced by fast growth. everyone’s in a rush to build a business quickly and take VC money.

His advice is to build something slowly. you’re not gonna build anything with any great significance quickly.

We also discussed:

How he built Hieat denim with a simple email newsletter. His books, mentors, successes and failures.

This is a masterclass in business growth.

Stick around for our favorite questions at the end where he talks about his mentors Paul Arden.

If you only listen to ONE podcast this year. This is the one for you.

Enjoy the chat. 

Jenny Plant is the founder of Account Management Skills Training and is on a mission  to help agency account managers and directors to develop sales skills earlier in their careers so they can become more commercially aware and confident in managing client relationships.

She has 30 years experience in agency account management. She coaches agency account managers and directors through her Account Accelerator coaching programme, a 90 day step by step process to go from unpredictable project revenue to more predictable account growth.

She also runs the fantastic podcast Creative Agency Account Manager.

Jim Houghton has over 25 years of international experience working with and within marketing and communication businesses on corporate finance, including M&A, exit planning, joint ventures, deal structuring, post-merger integration and earnout management.

Yasin Alimam is the Founder of Hotpatch, one of the most disruptive and innovative businesses around today. They connect those with available workspaces with those who need it. It’s WeWork meets AirBnB.

We talk about all things growth, how they won their first few users, brand building, how they plan to get to critical mass, and so much more. 

If you are at all interested in technology, startups, and the new world of work, then you are going to find this to be an absolutely fascinating conversation. 

We talk about:

🔸 Where the idea for Hotpatch originated

🔸 What the first product/MVP looked like

🔸 The problems Hotpatch solves for its clients

🔸 The key metrics to track to achieve full business potential

Enjoy the conversation

Chris Bagnall is the founder and CEO of Transmission Agency

They are in the top 5 B2B only international agencies in the world. and just in case you were wondering, that list of 5 starts at above 25 million US dollars.

They’ve been either the first or second fastest growing B2B agency HQd UK for the last 4 years in a row.

They are the 42nd fastest growing business in the UK, according to the FT.

Their goal is to become the biggest, most respected B2B comms group in the world. They’ve done this with all organic growth, no investors.

We discuss:

1. why shouldn’t name a business after yourself
2. is the best model a Full-service agency or specialist agency
3. How B2B marketing has evolved
4. and just so much more

Enjoy the chat.

Nick Clark is the Managing Director of Nelson Bostok.

After being with the business for over 20 years and MD for 7, there is very little he doesn't know about growing B2B technology brands. Toshiba has been a client for 30 years, Cannon for 18 years.

We discuss:

How they got over the tricky £4 and £5 million turnover barrier. 

They introduced new business process, hired some amazing people, added an integrated offering which gave them the skills of account-based marketing, marketing automation, attribution, they also made some smart acquisitions.

This is a masterclass in helping clients grow and achieving their own agency business goals in the process.

They’re one of those agencies whose name keeps popping up from time to time but you don't know too much about. except that they’ve got some amazing clients and keep showing on the top B2B agencies list.

they don’t shout about themselves a lot, they fly under the radar but continue to produce great work.

Enjoy the chat.

David Van Schaick is the CMO of The Marketing Practice, one of the leading global B2B marketing agencies in the country with revenues over £17 million.

They have over 180 people and run global marketing programmes for the likes of Microsoft, O2 Telefonica, Xerox, Salesforce and Citrix.

David has really a fascinating background not only academically but also professionally. He starts his career as a copy writer in 2005 and he joined at the right time because from that point on, growth really took off.

They were ranked number 3 in the fastest growing UK B2B agencies and number 9 in the fastest growing US B2B agencies.

The arc of his career tracks the development of behavioural science and behavioural economics and how that discipline has been adopted by the marketing profession and made popular by books like Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Khanneman and predictably irrational, Dan Ariely.

From that point of view he's a marketing purist and talks about the importance of B2B marketers taking brand far more seriously than they have been so far.

If you are at all interesting in:

🔸 Brand vs demand

🔸 Account based marketing

🔸 Behavioural science in B2B marketing

Enjoy the chat