Starting an agency can be a bit of a wild ride, full of stress and uncertainty but also hugely rewarding. But how do you then make a move from a creative role to becoming a leader? We spoke to Kelly Molson, Founder and MD of Rubber Cheese to see how she made the transition.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:10:01
Intro
Welcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale. Our podcast,
where we talk to our brilliant agency owners about all things agency
life.
00:00:11:00 - 00:00:17:11
Ellie
So today on the podcast, I am joined by Kelly Molson from Rubber
Cheese. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Kelly.
00:00:17:15 - 00:00:20:18
Kelly
Thank you for having me on the podcast, it's a pleasure!
00:00:21:01 - 00:00:34:02
Ellie
You are very, very welcome. So like we always do with Agency
Collective Tales, take us way back in time when Rubber Cheese first
started.
First off, where did the name come from?
00:00:34:05 - 00:00:52:08
Kelly
It's such a rubbish story to this and everybody always asks about
the name and honestly, we just plucked it out of thin air because we
were young and foolish and stupid. This was like nearly 20 years
ago. So there was like a theme of agencies being called like Blue
Chile or Green Banana. So rubber cheese didn't seem that odd back
then.
00:00:53:11 - 00:01:15:22
Kelly
And we were like 24, 25, didn't really think through the whole brand
image or brand story stuff back then. But we did actually run a
story competition later on in our agency career. So actually if you
go to the website, you will see there is a little story on there as
to why Rubber Cheese is called Rubber Cheesebut I'm going to let you
go and find it rather than tell you
00:01:15:22 - 00:01:16:10
Ellie & Kelly
[LAUGHTER]
00:01:17:07 - 00:01:27:21
Ellie
I'll do that. So you were 24 when the agency started. What had been
your work experience up till then? That's ever so young to make the
leap to starting your own business. How did that come about?
00:01:27:23 - 00:01:47:15
Kelly
I think it felt young then, it doesn't feel young now. There are
agency founders that are way younger than we were that are members
of the AC. So back then it felt quite young. But I'd worked in an
agency I mean, I was a graphic designer. I'd trained to be a graphic
designer and I'd worked in various roles. I guess you'd probably
call me a bit of an allrounder, so i never really found one thing
that I wanted to stick at.
00:01:47:15 - 00:02:13:10
Kelly
I did a little bit of branding design and I did some packaging
design, and then I went and worked for a marketing agency and did
marketing design. And I just stayed in places a couple of years and
then moved on. Got itchy feet, I guess. And then I ended up working
at a web design company who had developed a really early Shopify
platform, and it allowed people to build their own ecommerce shops
and think about this is like 21 years ago.
00:02:13:10 - 00:02:30:22
Kelly
So this is really a new thing back then. I think e-commerce and
shopping online was still quite a frightening thing for people. It
wasn't the norm.
I was brought in as a print designer, but then I ended up designing
ecommerce shops and I guess that was where I got my first taste of
digital think it's probably the first time that I've had an email
address as well.
00:02:31:13 - 00:02:48:01
Kelly
So long ago! And I met my co-founder Paul there. He was a designer
as well, and I think the two of us, we were almost doing the same
thing day in, day out, and we just got a little bit frustrated
really. So the two of us decided that we were going to almost go off
and freelance but do it under the Rubber Cheese name.
00:02:48:01 - 00:02:51:00
Kelly
So we hadn't really thought that much about setting up a company. It
was just:
00:02:51:00 - 00:02:55:04
Kelly
"Let's go and freelance, let's go and do something a bit different
for a while and see where this goes."
00:02:55:04 - 00:03:05:10
Kelly
And we were just really lucky. So when I left the company, I sent an
email out to everybody on my email database which was probably about
20 people back then, 'cause I'd only just got an email address.
00:03:05:14 - 00:03:38:10
Kelly
But I had just recently connected with an old school friend on
Friends Reunited - Retro, I know! And he worked at an architect's
firm, and the architects firm needed to partner with a designer or a
team of designers on a pitch they were doing for Tescos. And so they
asked if we would partner with them on it. We said, yep, and long
story short, they won the pitch and so we ended up working for
Tesco's for about two years and that was one of our first clients
and that was just a phenomenal stroke of luck because that was our
bread and butter that paid our rent and that gave us I guess a
little bit of freedom to try
00:03:38:10 - 00:03:52:19
Kelly
out lots of different things that we wanted to do. So we did some
illustration work, we were doing some graphic design work and then
slowly over the years we just built up our client base quite
organically. It felt like a really nice easy start to agency life,
and then it got chaos.
00:03:54:23 - 00:04:02:12
Ellie
You guys have quite a specific niche, so can you tell me about that
in terms of the clients that you work with and how you discovered
that niche?
00:04:02:12 - 00:04:25:04
Kelly
Yeah, so we work a lot with visitor tourist attractions, and tourism
in general. It came about in a bit of a weird way. So one of our
longstanding clients is Pernod Ricard, global drinks company. And
they have brands under their umbrella like The Glenlivet, Abelour,
Plymouth Gin, Beefeater Gin, and we've been very lucky to work with
them for probably over ten years now on various different digital
projects.
00:04:25:07 - 00:04:44:18
Kelly
And a few years ago they asked us to create a ticket booking system
for the Plymouth Gin Visitor Centre, which is a great project. We
worked on that for about a year launched it, and it was such a
success for that visitor centre that they then rolled the platform
out for Beefeater Gin and then for four of the whisky distilleries
up in Scotland.
00:04:45:08 - 00:05:22:08
Kelly
And that project gave us an incredible insight into the visitor
economy, visitor experience attractions world. We all soon realised
how much we'd loved working on that project and how much we wanted
to do more of that kind of work. So I guess that's really where the
niche started to come from. We actively then looked for more
projects that we could use our expertise that we'd gained on that
for. Very lucky to win a pitch for Eureka, the National Children's
Museum, and those projects set us on the road to niching in that
area, which was quite scary to start with because we'd never put all
of our eggs in one basket before and we do still get enquiries
outside
00:05:22:08 - 00:05:38:16
Kelly
of that sector. And we pick and choose whether we think that we're a
good fit for them or we pass them on to other agencies as well. I
think that's probably just a historical thing because we've been
around for so long, but we started to then focus all of our outward
marketing on that niche as well, which was quite frightening to do
that.
00:05:38:16 - 00:06:00:10
Kelly
Suddenly you're making a really big statement about who you want to
work with - 'are you cutting your nose of to spite your face',
moment., But it's been fantastic, actually. And for me and the team
are all very much people that we would spend our own money on
experiences rather than stuff. And so it's a really good fit
personally for us., as well and runs through the core of our values
and what we value from a personal perspective as well.
00:06:00:20 - 00:06:02:20
Kelly
So it was the right thing to do.
00:06:02:20 - 00:06:05:07
Ellie
Hundred percent. But then how did 2020 affect you?
00:06:05:16 - 00:06:22:08
Kelly
Yeah, I'm not going to lie. That was quite scary! [LAUGHS] If I'm
being completey honest, 2019 had been a bit of a challenging year.
So I've spoken to quite a few agencies who had a bit of a rocky 2019
to be honest, and it was very up and down for us. So we came into
2020 with a slightly leaner team.
00:06:22:14 - 00:06:45:20
Kelly
We came into 2020, probably a bit war wounded, bruised and feeling a
little bit damaged, but we worked our bloody arses off. We won some
brilliant projects that all kicked off at the start of 2020, so we
were in a really, really strong position. March happened and that
was pretty terrifying and I guess it did make us sit back and
question, have we done the right thing here?
00:06:46:03 - 00:07:03:24
Kelly
I think that anyone will tell you, if you're going to niche into to
a sector, it's going to take good 18 months to make any kind of
impact I would say and we had launched into that in around July
August time of 2019. So we were coming up for just six months of
that and we did sit and question and say 'What do we do?"
00:07:04:02 - 00:07:24:02
Kelly
"We've gone all in and we've made this massive statement. It's what
we all feel and believe is the right thing for us." And so what we
did was just carry on doing everything that we could to support that
sector with the understanding that nobody had any money to spend.
People were being furloughed, made redundant, left right and centre.
It was horrendous attractions were closing, some never to be opened
ever again.
00:07:24:18 - 00:07:57:05
Kelly
So what could we do to help them? What could we do to support them?
And try and get through this dreadful time? And that was what we
did. We focussed on our podcast called Skip the Queue. We spoke to
as many people as we can. We asked them what help they needed. We
created a free e-book download with hundreds of strategies that they
could try, but when they were reopening just to try and get their
websites in the best possible position before they could reopen, I
spoke on webinars, I spoke at conferences and we just shared as much
of our expertise as we possibly could because that's all we could
do.
00:07:57:17 - 00:08:20:24
Kelly
So it was scary but that was the best thing that we could do. And
actually I made some amazing... I don't even want to say contacts.
I've just made some amazing friends within that sector, they're not
contacts anymore. They're friends who we've gone on to work with or
we've gone on to help in some way, or they actively support us in
terms of referrals and introductions and introductions just for the
podcast,
00:08:20:24 - 00:08:29:11
Kelly
I feel like it gave us the opportunity to really build a community
over that time community of people that we could really help.
00:08:29:11 - 00:08:34:02
Ellie
That's brilliant. Must have been such a comfort going through
2020/2021.
00:08:35:02 - 00:08:52:01
Kelly
The podcast was if I 'm honest. I've said this is blog posts, it was
the one thing that just kept me going because every week I knew that
I could speak to people, someone different, and I was going to talk
about something new, something exciting, or I was giving them a
platform to be able to share how they were feeling about what they
were going through or how they could support the industry as well.
00:08:52:11 - 00:09:01:16
Kelly
And it got me through that. It was brilliant. I'm so grateful to the
people that gave up their time to come and share on it because it
was helping me just as much as it was helping the audience that was
listening.
00:09:02:17 - 00:09:13:13
Ellie
I bet you were! Going from the two of you, 24, starting your agency,
just accidentally, almost. How do you then learn to be an agency
leader and lead a team?
00:09:14:24 - 00:09:31:12
Kelly
Probably still learning! [LAUGHS] It's just ongoing. Isn't it? Every
day is a learning day when it comes to stuff like that. It's a
really interesting question. It was just the two of us for a really
long time. So Paul and I for about five years and we were very much
trying to run a business, trying to get work in, trying to then do
the business.
00:09:31:12 - 00:09:55:13
Kelly
You know, I was in a production role still then, both of us were.
And I think we would have coming up to that 30 bracket and having
that conversation about what are we doing? Is it just the two of us
forever or are we going to grow this? What does this become? And we
decided that we were going to try to grow an agency and we had to
make the decision about somebody stepping back from a production
role, really, because it was getting too difficult to manage those
two different roles.
00:09:55:20 - 00:10:14:00
Kelly
And then we would end up with that feast or famine where we won a
lot of business. But then we were too busy doing the business to
actually look at what the pipeline looked like, and more. And so I
took a step back from production and we hired a designer that would
take on my design role. And then it became a two year journey of
pain.
00:10:14:00 - 00:10:34:12
Kelly
I'm not going to lie. I really struggled coming from a creative
background, suddenly being thrown into a world of spreadsheets and
pipeline and profit and loss [COMICAL GROWLING NOISE] and all those
scary things that you have to learn when you're a business owner and
learning how to manage people. In any of my roles prior to that, I'd
never actually managed anybody.
00:10:34:12 - 00:10:52:22
Kelly
I'd never had a junior under me or anything like that. And so there
was a lot that I needed to learn, and it felt like a very, very
steep journey. And I actually did feel quite resentful to start with
because I felt like Paul had stayed in his designer stroke creative
director role when he got to do the things that he knew really well.
00:10:53:04 - 00:11:10:13
Kelly
And suddenly I've got to learn all of this stuff that I'm finding
really difficult and challenging. And I just wanted to pull my hair
out every single day. And I'd say it honestly took a good couple of
years to feel confident in that role and confident that I knew what
I was doing and I could lead that agency. Every day is a learning
day from now.
00:11:10:13 - 00:11:24:09
Kelly
I'm really lucky that I have a really good agency network around me.
Obviously, we've got Agency Collective, who's been an incredible
support and there's always someone that's been through an experience
that you're about to go through that you can ask: "Has anyone gone
through this?" And instantly you'll have like00:11:24:09 - 00:11:25:14
Ellie
Been there, done that advice.
00:11:25:14 - 00:11:30:19
Kelly
Yeah, five or six people will be like, "Yes, oh my God, this has
happened to us as well, and you're not alone in it all"
00:11:30:19 - 00:11:39:05
Kelly
And that's probably the best thing that I did, is just try and build
up as many agency contacts as I possibly could, who would support me
through that journey of pain.
00:11:41:06 - 00:11:45:20
Ellie
What's next for Rubber Cheese, then? What's coming up and where do
you see the agency going
00:11:45:20 - 00:12:05:13
Kelly
There's been lots of change already. Obviously, the pandemic made
big changes for everybody. It's interesting because in 2019 we had
one team member who moved back home up north, so we were already
running a semi remote working model. So we had experience of how
that might work for us. And at the moment that's what we've gone to.
Everyone was really happy our office lease came up.
00:12:05:17 - 00:12:23:06
Kelly
Nobody really wanted to go back there five days a week. So at the
moment we're just running a remote office. So that's been a new way
of working and a new way of patterns to understand how to lead an
agency like that. The niche is doing brillianty. So we've got some
fabulous client partners that we're working with within that, so I
can only see that going from strength to strength.
00:12:23:10 - 00:12:39:11
Kelly
And there's some exciting things happening with the podcast and an
event that will be happening hopefully at the beginning of next
year. And that's something that we see developing more and more of -
us doing live events again, which would be amazing to get people
back in the room.
00:12:39:11 - 00:12:49:18
Kelly
Lots of change, lots of exciting things happening moving forward,
and I think maybe a slightly different role for myself as well
because we've just had our lovely little girl, she's eight months
now.
00:12:50:01 - 00:13:03:02
Kelly
Life is very different for me personally now, and I think that has
to be reflected in what I do with the agency as well. So I think
there might be a few changes coming up there that will help me
manage my work/life balance a little bit better than it currently
is.
00:13:04:00 - 00:13:12:10
Ellie
Well, I wish you all of the luck for the future, and hope you get
that work/life balance. It's so important. And you as an agency
founder, you've got to lead the way for the team as well, right?
00:13:12:18 - 00:13:16:08
Kelly
Absolutely. Yeah. If it doesn't come from the top down, then it's
not going to happen, is it?
00:13:17:03 - 00:13:19:02
Ellie
Brilliant. Thanks so much, Kelly. It's been great.
00:13:19:11 - 00:13:22:01
Kelly
Thank you. So lovely to be on. Really appreciate it.
00:13:22:19 - 00:13:33:08
Intro
Thanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe. Stay
in touch. And if you like what you hear. Find out more at
theagencycollective. co.uk.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:10:01
Intro
Welcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale. Our podcast,
where we talk to our brilliant agency owners about all things agency
life.
00:00:11:00 - 00:00:17:11
Ellie
So today on the podcast, I am joined by Kelly Molson from Rubber
Cheese. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Kelly.
00:00:17:15 - 00:00:20:18
Kelly
Thank you for having me on the podcast, it's a pleasure!
00:00:21:01 - 00:00:34:02
Ellie
You are very, very welcome. So like we always do with Agency
Collective Tales, take us way back in time when Rubber Cheese first
started.
First off, where did the name come from?
00:00:34:05 - 00:00:52:08
Kelly
It's such a rubbish story to this and everybody always asks about
the name and honestly, we just plucked it out of thin air because we
were young and foolish and stupid. This was like nearly 20 years
ago. So there was like a theme of agencies being called like Blue
Chile or Green Banana. So rubber cheese didn't seem that odd back
then.
00:00:53:11 - 00:01:15:22
Kelly
And we were like 24, 25, didn't really think through the whole brand
image or brand story stuff back then. But we did actually run a
story competition later on in our agency career. So actually if you
go to the website, you will see there is a little story on there as
to why Rubber Cheese is called Rubber Cheesebut I'm going to let you
go and find it rather than tell you
00:01:15:22 - 00:01:16:10
Ellie & Kelly
[LAUGHTER]
00:01:17:07 - 00:01:27:21
Ellie
I'll do that. So you were 24 when the agency started. What had been
your work experience up till then? That's ever so young to make the
leap to starting your own business. How did that come about?
00:01:27:23 - 00:01:47:15
Kelly
I think it felt young then, it doesn't feel young now. There are
agency founders that are way younger than we were that are members
of the AC. So back then it felt quite young. But I'd worked in an
agency I mean, I was a graphic designer. I'd trained to be a graphic
designer and I'd worked in various roles. I guess you'd probably
call me a bit of an allrounder, so i never really found one thing
that I wanted to stick at.
00:01:47:15 - 00:02:13:10
Kelly
I did a little bit of branding design and I did some packaging
design, and then I went and worked for a marketing agency and did
marketing design. And I just stayed in places a couple of years and
then moved on. Got itchy feet, I guess. And then I ended up working
at a web design company who had developed a really early Shopify
platform, and it allowed people to build their own ecommerce shops
and think about this is like 21 years ago.
00:02:13:10 - 00:02:30:22
Kelly
So this is really a new thing back then. I think e-commerce and
shopping online was still quite a frightening thing for people. It
wasn't the norm.
I was brought in as a print designer, but then I ended up designing
ecommerce shops and I guess that was where I got my first taste of
digital think it's probably the first time that I've had an email
address as well.
00:02:31:13 - 00:02:48:01
Kelly
So long ago! And I met my co-founder Paul there. He was a designer
as well, and I think the two of us, we were almost doing the same
thing day in, day out, and we just got a little bit frustrated
really. So the two of us decided that we were going to almost go off
and freelance but do it under the Rubber Cheese name.
00:02:48:01 - 00:02:51:00
Kelly
So we hadn't really thought that much about setting up a company. It
was just:
00:02:51:00 - 00:02:55:04
Kelly
"Let's go and freelance, let's go and do something a bit different
for a while and see where this goes."
00:02:55:04 - 00:03:05:10
Kelly
And we were just really lucky. So when I left the company, I sent an
email out to everybody on my email database which was probably about
20 people back then, 'cause I'd only just got an email address.
00:03:05:14 - 00:03:38:10
Kelly
But I had just recently connected with an old school friend on
Friends Reunited - Retro, I know! And he worked at an architect's
firm, and the architects firm needed to partner with a designer or a
team of designers on a pitch they were doing for Tescos. And so they
asked if we would partner with them on it. We said, yep, and long
story short, they won the pitch and so we ended up working for
Tesco's for about two years and that was one of our first clients
and that was just a phenomenal stroke of luck because that was our
bread and butter that paid our rent and that gave us I guess a
little bit of freedom to try
00:03:38:10 - 00:03:52:19
Kelly
out lots of different things that we wanted to do. So we did some
illustration work, we were doing some graphic design work and then
slowly over the years we just built up our client base quite
organically. It felt like a really nice easy start to agency life,
and then it got chaos.
00:03:54:23 - 00:04:02:12
Ellie
You guys have quite a specific niche, so can you tell me about that
in terms of the clients that you work with and how you discovered
that niche?
00:04:02:12 - 00:04:25:04
Kelly
Yeah, so we work a lot with visitor tourist attractions, and tourism
in general. It came about in a bit of a weird way. So one of our
longstanding clients is Pernod Ricard, global drinks company. And
they have brands under their umbrella like The Glenlivet, Abelour,
Plymouth Gin, Beefeater Gin, and we've been very lucky to work with
them for probably over ten years now on various different digital
projects.
00:04:25:07 - 00:04:44:18
Kelly
And a few years ago they asked us to create a ticket booking system
for the Plymouth Gin Visitor Centre, which is a great project. We
worked on that for about a year launched it, and it was such a
success for that visitor centre that they then rolled the platform
out for Beefeater Gin and then for four of the whisky distilleries
up in Scotland.
00:04:45:08 - 00:05:22:08
Kelly
And that project gave us an incredible insight into the visitor
economy, visitor experience attractions world. We all soon realised
how much we'd loved working on that project and how much we wanted
to do more of that kind of work. So I guess that's really where the
niche started to come from. We actively then looked for more
projects that we could use our expertise that we'd gained on that
for. Very lucky to win a pitch for Eureka, the National Children's
Museum, and those projects set us on the road to niching in that
area, which was quite scary to start with because we'd never put all
of our eggs in one basket before and we do still get enquiries
outside
00:05:22:08 - 00:05:38:16
Kelly
of that sector. And we pick and choose whether we think that we're a
good fit for them or we pass them on to other agencies as well. I
think that's probably just a historical thing because we've been
around for so long, but we started to then focus all of our outward
marketing on that niche as well, which was quite frightening to do
that.
00:05:38:16 - 00:06:00:10
Kelly
Suddenly you're making a really big statement about who you want to
work with - 'are you cutting your nose of to spite your face',
moment., But it's been fantastic, actually. And for me and the team
are all very much people that we would spend our own money on
experiences rather than stuff. And so it's a really good fit
personally for us., as well and runs through the core of our values
and what we value from a personal perspective as well.
00:06:00:20 - 00:06:02:20
Kelly
So it was the right thing to do.
00:06:02:20 - 00:06:05:07
Ellie
Hundred percent. But then how did 2020 affect you?
00:06:05:16 - 00:06:22:08
Kelly
Yeah, I'm not going to lie. That was quite scary! [LAUGHS] If I'm
being completey honest, 2019 had been a bit of a challenging year.
So I've spoken to quite a few agencies who had a bit of a rocky 2019
to be honest, and it was very up and down for us. So we came into
2020 with a slightly leaner team.
00:06:22:14 - 00:06:45:20
Kelly
We came into 2020, probably a bit war wounded, bruised and feeling a
little bit damaged, but we worked our bloody arses off. We won some
brilliant projects that all kicked off at the start of 2020, so we
were in a really, really strong position. March happened and that
was pretty terrifying and I guess it did make us sit back and
question, have we done the right thing here?
00:06:46:03 - 00:07:03:24
Kelly
I think that anyone will tell you, if you're going to niche into to
a sector, it's going to take good 18 months to make any kind of
impact I would say and we had launched into that in around July
August time of 2019. So we were coming up for just six months of
that and we did sit and question and say 'What do we do?"
00:07:04:02 - 00:07:24:02
Kelly
"We've gone all in and we've made this massive statement. It's what
we all feel and believe is the right thing for us." And so what we
did was just carry on doing everything that we could to support that
sector with the understanding that nobody had any money to spend.
People were being furloughed, made redundant, left right and centre.
It was horrendous attractions were closing, some never to be opened
ever again.
00:07:24:18 - 00:07:57:05
Kelly
So what could we do to help them? What could we do to support them?
And try and get through this dreadful time? And that was what we
did. We focussed on our podcast called Skip the Queue. We spoke to
as many people as we can. We asked them what help they needed. We
created a free e-book download with hundreds of strategies that they
could try, but when they were reopening just to try and get their
websites in the best possible position before they could reopen, I
spoke on webinars, I spoke at conferences and we just shared as much
of our expertise as we possibly could because that's all we could
do.
00:07:57:17 - 00:08:20:24
Kelly
So it was scary but that was the best thing that we could do. And
actually I made some amazing... I don't even want to say contacts.
I've just made some amazing friends within that sector, they're not
contacts anymore. They're friends who we've gone on to work with or
we've gone on to help in some way, or they actively support us in
terms of referrals and introductions and introductions just for the
podcast,
00:08:20:24 - 00:08:29:11
Kelly
I feel like it gave us the opportunity to really build a community
over that time community of people that we could really help.
00:08:29:11 - 00:08:34:02
Ellie
That's brilliant. Must have been such a comfort going through
2020/2021.
00:08:35:02 - 00:08:52:01
Kelly
The podcast was if I 'm honest. I've said this is blog posts, it was
the one thing that just kept me going because every week I knew that
I could speak to people, someone different, and I was going to talk
about something new, something exciting, or I was giving them a
platform to be able to share how they were feeling about what they
were going through or how they could support the industry as well.
00:08:52:11 - 00:09:01:16
Kelly
And it got me through that. It was brilliant. I'm so grateful to the
people that gave up their time to come and share on it because it
was helping me just as much as it was helping the audience that was
listening.
00:09:02:17 - 00:09:13:13
Ellie
I bet you were! Going from the two of you, 24, starting your agency,
just accidentally, almost. How do you then learn to be an agency
leader and lead a team?
00:09:14:24 - 00:09:31:12
Kelly
Probably still learning! [LAUGHS] It's just ongoing. Isn't it? Every
day is a learning day when it comes to stuff like that. It's a
really interesting question. It was just the two of us for a really
long time. So Paul and I for about five years and we were very much
trying to run a business, trying to get work in, trying to then do
the business.
00:09:31:12 - 00:09:55:13
Kelly
You know, I was in a production role still then, both of us were.
And I think we would have coming up to that 30 bracket and having
that conversation about what are we doing? Is it just the two of us
forever or are we going to grow this? What does this become? And we
decided that we were going to try to grow an agency and we had to
make the decision about somebody stepping back from a production
role, really, because it was getting too difficult to manage those
two different roles.
00:09:55:20 - 00:10:14:00
Kelly
And then we would end up with that feast or famine where we won a
lot of business. But then we were too busy doing the business to
actually look at what the pipeline looked like, and more. And so I
took a step back from production and we hired a designer that would
take on my design role. And then it became a two year journey of
pain.
00:10:14:00 - 00:10:34:12
Kelly
I'm not going to lie. I really struggled coming from a creative
background, suddenly being thrown into a world of spreadsheets and
pipeline and profit and loss [COMICAL GROWLING NOISE] and all those
scary things that you have to learn when you're a business owner and
learning how to manage people. In any of my roles prior to that, I'd
never actually managed anybody.
00:10:34:12 - 00:10:52:22
Kelly
I'd never had a junior under me or anything like that. And so there
was a lot that I needed to learn, and it felt like a very, very
steep journey. And I actually did feel quite resentful to start with
because I felt like Paul had stayed in his designer stroke creative
director role when he got to do the things that he knew really well.
00:10:53:04 - 00:11:10:13
Kelly
And suddenly I've got to learn all of this stuff that I'm finding
really difficult and challenging. And I just wanted to pull my hair
out every single day. And I'd say it honestly took a good couple of
years to feel confident in that role and confident that I knew what
I was doing and I could lead that agency. Every day is a learning
day from now.
00:11:10:13 - 00:11:24:09
Kelly
I'm really lucky that I have a really good agency network around me.
Obviously, we've got Agency Collective, who's been an incredible
support and there's always someone that's been through an experience
that you're about to go through that you can ask: "Has anyone gone
through this?" And instantly you'll have like00:11:24:09 - 00:11:25:14
Ellie
Been there, done that advice.
00:11:25:14 - 00:11:30:19
Kelly
Yeah, five or six people will be like, "Yes, oh my God, this has
happened to us as well, and you're not alone in it all"
00:11:30:19 - 00:11:39:05
Kelly
And that's probably the best thing that I did, is just try and build
up as many agency contacts as I possibly could, who would support me
through that journey of pain.
00:11:41:06 - 00:11:45:20
Ellie
What's next for Rubber Cheese, then? What's coming up and where do
you see the agency going
00:11:45:20 - 00:12:05:13
Kelly
There's been lots of change already. Obviously, the pandemic made
big changes for everybody. It's interesting because in 2019 we had
one team member who moved back home up north, so we were already
running a semi remote working model. So we had experience of how
that might work for us. And at the moment that's what we've gone to.
Everyone was really happy our office lease came up.
00:12:05:17 - 00:12:23:06
Kelly
Nobody really wanted to go back there five days a week. So at the
moment we're just running a remote office. So that's been a new way
of working and a new way of patterns to understand how to lead an
agency like that. The niche is doing brillianty. So we've got some
fabulous client partners that we're working with within that, so I
can only see that going from strength to strength.
00:12:23:10 - 00:12:39:11
Kelly
And there's some exciting things happening with the podcast and an
event that will be happening hopefully at the beginning of next
year. And that's something that we see developing more and more of -
us doing live events again, which would be amazing to get people
back in the room.
00:12:39:11 - 00:12:49:18
Kelly
Lots of change, lots of exciting things happening moving forward,
and I think maybe a slightly different role for myself as well
because we've just had our lovely little girl, she's eight months
now.
00:12:50:01 - 00:13:03:02
Kelly
Life is very different for me personally now, and I think that has
to be reflected in what I do with the agency as well. So I think
there might be a few changes coming up there that will help me
manage my work/life balance a little bit better than it currently
is.
00:13:04:00 - 00:13:12:10
Ellie
Well, I wish you all of the luck for the future, and hope you get
that work/life balance. It's so important. And you as an agency
founder, you've got to lead the way for the team as well, right?
00:13:12:18 - 00:13:16:08
Kelly
Absolutely. Yeah. If it doesn't come from the top down, then it's
not going to happen, is it?
00:13:17:03 - 00:13:19:02
Ellie
Brilliant. Thanks so much, Kelly. It's been great.
00:13:19:11 - 00:13:22:01
Kelly
Thank you. So lovely to be on. Really appreciate it.
00:13:22:19 - 00:13:33:08
Intro
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