In this episode of the Agency Collective Tales, Ellie spoke to Pete Heslop, founder and Managing Director of Steadfast Collective about leaving the agency he helped to co-found to start a new agency rooted in his passion for digital products, being able to holiday & live the life he wants and how his love of all things community shaped Steadfast Collective. Pete Heslop is Managing Director at Steadfast Collective, his passion is working with smart creatives to craft digital applications that bring people together.
00:00:00:11 - 00:00:10:46
Narrator
Welcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale: Our podcast
where we talk to our brilliant agency owners, about all things agency
life.
00:00:10:97 - 00:00:17:34
ELLIE
Today I am joined on the podcast by Pete Heslop from The Steadfast
Collective. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:00:17:58 - 00:00:18:42
PETE
It's great to be here.
00:00:18:78 - 00:00:29:34
ELLIE
Yeah, on the podcast at last! So first off, Pete, can you just tell me
how you got into the agency game? How did it start off? Because this
isn't your first go, is it?
00:00:29:62 - 00:00:53:64
PETE
No. So in 2012 I started as an agency with two friends, Joe Perkins, who
is part of Agency Collective and Matt Luke, and I've known Matt ever
since I was a child and I met Joe through Matt and essentially we tried
to launch an iPhone app, it kind of failed and essentially we realised
that between us we had design, development and marketing skills and
perhaps we should just build an agency.
00:00:53:83 - 00:01:11:63
PETE
That's what we did, we built BriteByte up to become a good size agency.
We grew that. Joe and Matt, really good friends and then essentially I
got married, Joe and Matt were my best men, and ushers at my wedding and
then I was sat in my new house with my wife and I was washing up one day
and I went: "I don't think this is for me anymore."
00:01:11:87 - 00:01:30:15
PETE
So I thought about it and then it all happened very quickly. I sat down
with Matt and Joe and had the little break-up talk and I said: "Look,
this isn't working for me. Design agency isn't quite for me. I need some
more space." So I stepped back and Britebyte is now thriving under Joe's
leadership. It's now rebranded as Chaptr, and they're doing amazing work
over there.
00:01:30:58 - 00:01:66:80
PETE
I started Steadfast Collective pretty much instantly, picked up a few
freelance clients and ran from there.
00:01:37:70 - 00:01:39:51
ELLIE
You were the Robbie Williams of the group?
00:01:39:86 - 00:01:44:97
PETE
Yep. But Chaptr is doing better now than it's ever been, so I think
it was probably good for the group.
00:01:45:65 - 00:01:50:26
ELLIE
[LAUGHS] What was it that you wanted that you weren't getting from
your previous agency?
00:01:50:59 - 00:02:11:16
PETE
I think for me, my passion was digital products. I really was
passionate about building the sorts of things we were seeing coming
out of Silicon Valley and the states and I remember one day being in
the agency at Britebyte with Joe and Matt, and we won this amazing
London client and it was design work. And I remember thinking: "I
just don't care. I don't care about design work."
00:02:11:17 - 00:02:23:46
PETE
It wasn't doing it for me, and my passion was really about more
backend development rather than front end. And that's ultimately
what I was doing before I started an agency - I was a back end
developer, and that's where my passions lay and so I wanted to focus
on that.
00:02:24:42 - 00:02:33:04
ELLIE
And so what was it like starting again, having built it up but also
having had a couple of co-founders around you, to it just being you?
How was that transition?
00:02:33:43 - 00:02:51:62
PETE
Yeah, it was really tough. Matt is one of the most talented
designers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Joe is
incredibly smart, so I went from having those kind of two cofounders
to going solo. And then very quickly my wife joined me on
the business. That's when we transformed from being Steadfast
Digital to Steadfast Collective was when she joined and we started
hiring.
00:02:51:86 - 00:03:09:96
PETE
It was incredibly daunting, but I was fortunate enough that I had a
good network around me of other agency owners. I had a vision of
where we wanted to go and I was quite fixed on that. Ultimately, I
wasn't running everything at Britebyte. So then from going to then
running everything at Steadfast was the big jump, but it was
something that I relished and I enjoyed the challenge of.
00:03:10:64 - 00:03:14:93
ELLIE
What was the vision and how close are you to that vision now?
00:03:15:66 - 00:03:39:86
PETE
The original aim of Steadfast Collective was to build an agency that
was small and profitable, and we could take the profits and go and
build IP so we could go to other SAS apps that would eventually make
recurring revenue. That was the plan. It was similar to what Ustwo
did with Mills and Sinx. They had the agency and they had the games
on the side, and then ultimately the games ended up being a massive
part of their business.
00:03:40:32 - 00:04:00:86
PETE
So for me, that's something that I really wanted to do, something I
was really passionate about. And so we focussed on from day one and
we still focussed on 20% of our team's time is focussed on building
out those SAS products, those internal things that ultimately
hopefully become a major part of our revenue stream. The only thing
that's changed for us is that focus on community.
00:04:00:93 - 00:04:16:09
PETE
So over the last couple of years the focus has really shifted to
being we really want to work with people who are focussed on
community and are passionate about that as what they do and we want
to work with those folks. That's been the main change for us over
the last seven, eight years.
00:04:16:77 - 00:04:27:35
ELLIE
So where did that niche come from? The working with communities, had
you had a couple of clients and thought this is the way to go? Was
it that you really enjoyed the passion that lies with community?
What is it about communities that appeal?
00:04:28:11 - 00:04:47:54
PETE
We had just gotten through the first year the pandemic, which hit us
really hard as an agency. As soon as Boris opened his mouth and
mentioned the word lockdown, we had other partners calling us and
just pausing projects, cancelling retainers, all of those good
things. It took a massive toll on mine and the team's mental health,
and it's probably something we don't talk about
00:04:47:54 - 00:05:09:04
PETE
enough as a team, but we all got incredibly burnt out. We picked up
probably too many clients, so we were fortunate. We did pick up new
clients during that early bit of the pandemic, but their deadlines
were unbelievably short and we were picking up clients we probably
shouldn't have done just because we thought that's how we're going
to survive. I found myself incredibly unwell: I couldn't open my
inbox, I couldn't wake up without feeling nauseous.
00:05:09:06 - 00:05:30:41
PETE
It was a really tough period, and eventually through family, through
my colleagues and through a fair chunk of counselling and therapy, I
got back to normal but we got to the end of that year, me and my
wife and the management team sat down and we said: "Let's not do
this again. What do we really want from this business?" And that was
the first time we decided this isn't an agency just for the sake of
being an agency.
00:05:30:70 - 00:05:50:31
PETE
This is a lifestyle business and in the agency world, that's almost
a dirty thing to say. The agency is there to serve me and my family,
our team and our clients, and then any overflow from that we want to
funnel into local community projects. That's kind of our map. I drew
this really sketchy circle diagram of how I was going to explain it
to the team.
00:05:50:42 - 00:06:08:92
PETE
We were like: "We should get a designer to redesign it." And we just
stuck with my sketchy iPad drawing. When we said that out loud and
we were like: "OK, what clients do we really love working with?" And
it was the ones that were leading communities. Quite often, they
were female founders who more often than not left their high flying
London jobs during their maternity leave.
00:06:09:09 - 00:06:25:16
PETE
This is a correlation through so many of our clients: Started a
business, it took off during their mat. leave. They stuck with it.
They built communities around what they were doing, and we were
like: "These are the people, these are our people. These are the
ones we love working with and these are the ones we're delivering so
much value to."
00:06:25:70 - 00:06:35:40
PETE
So they're the ones we went after. And that community of smart,
creative folks who are high flying in their jobs but have decided to
start out on their own. That's our crew.
00:06:36:22 - 00:06:37:79
ELLIE
Isn't it amazing when you find your people?
00:06:98:12 - 00:06:48:39
PETE
It really helped us focus. I think it brought a lot of stability to
the team because they understood what was going on. It brought a lot
of stability to me, a new business because I knew who we were
talking to. It's very reassuring.
00:06:49:12 - 00:06:56:03
ELLIE
So since you made that decision and thought: "Sod it, this is who we
want to work with, this is who we are." How has the business
developed since then?
00:06:56:88 - 00:07:17:95
PETE
We have grown. We have hired, we've had, like all agencies, highs
and lows. Since we made that decision, we've had our record month
for sales, for turnover, same with quarter. And we are now at a
place of stability and clarity. So we know where we're going. We
know how we can get there. We have the runway to do it.
00:07:18:40 - 00:07:31:52
PETE
I think the next step is how do we build out that community further
to better serve those people? So it's given us the confidence to
really make big steps into that decision. I go all in and I think
that's carried us quite far.
00:07:32:53 - 00:07:34:83
ELLIE
And have started your own community.
00:07:35:47 - 00:07:58:23
PETE
So we launched Summit because I think we've been working on for a
little while now. And essentially Summit is a space for unexpected
entrepreneurs to come together and learn because what we were
finding was folk that are building these incredible communities are
so good at what they do, whether it's cross stitch, whether it's a
community of solicitors, whatever it is, they're so good at that
thing.
00:07:58:63 - 00:08:15:89
PETE
But what they sometimes lack is those digital skills to approach an
agency. So Summit was designed originally as a video series, and
then we expanded out to a whole community hub, which we're launching
later this year, and we want to just help those people make good
decisions. Like: "Here's the six red flags you should know about
when you're appointing an agency.
00:08:16:28 - 00:08:33:31
PETE
If they're asking for like a 90% deposit, maybe that's a red flag.
If they're not going to give you a contract, red flag." And we're
just trying to help people make those decisions. If they've never
done it before, because working in the digital world, if everything
you do is normally tactile and tangible, which often is in
communities, can be really daunting.
00:08:33:31 - 00:08:46:85
PETE
So we wanted to build out these guides and build that community. And
for us, the next step would be starting to run in-person events,
those sorts of things. But it's a little out of my comfort zone.
It's quite daunting. I've never been a community manager, so it's
quite different to my normal day to day.
00:08:47:76 - 00:08:55:57
ELLIE
I'm here for any tips, mate. So what do you think has really helped
you on your agency you found a journey.
00:08:56:24 - 00:09:29:86
PETE
I have been completely shameless in asking people for help, so we
are fortunate in Southampton, which is where I'm from. There is a
really good network of agencies down here, large and small, along
with I've got some really good agency friends who I met through The
Agency Collective, whether that's network agencies or small
independents like us. And I will pester them and I will ask them
questions and I will book in regular time with them because they've
been there, they've done that and being able just to understand:
"Oh, okay, I've got this pretty scary letter just come through the
post."
00:09:30:09 - 00:09:49:82
PETE
"It doesn't matter. We get them all the time." "When should we think
about moving from our local accountant to a proper firm?" All of
those decisions. There's that classic thing in the agency world,
which is feast or famine. You have real highs and lows and knowing
that the next sale will come at some point is really reassuring to
someone who is still fairly young in agency world.
00:09:50:71 - 00:09:55:69
ELLIE
What is next for you guys? What are you looking at for the future,
for the next couple of years for you guys?
00:09:56:28 - 00:10:17:44
PETE
I think for us we are making strides to becoming more autonomous and
more profitable and hopefully those things go hand in hand. So for
the first time this year since the business started, I took a
holiday where I didn't take my laptop. That was a massive step for
us. We've hired a great ops manager who handles everything clientside,
everything post contract being signed is his responsibility.
00:10:17:72 - 00:10:45:30
PETE
That was a big step. And we're remote anyway as a team. Being able
to step further and further back from the business is feeling really
good and it's feeling like we're heading towards something which is
sustainable rather than being relient on myself and Rachel, which is
really good. And that leads onto: The more profitable we can be as
an agency, the more efficient we can be, the more focus we can put
on Summit and the other ventures we're trying to launch, which will
ultimately then turn into recurring revenue, which will then
eventually turn into us having less pressure on the agency side.
00:10:45:87 - 00:11:02:37
PETE
I don't imagine running an agency into retirement. I imagine running
a software business: A mix of agency and that recurring revenue. So
for us it's how do we get that blend just so there's not all of our
eggs in one basket and there's less pressure on the entire business.
So that's some of our next steps.
00:11:03:85 - 00:11:13:92
ELLIE
I think that's really savvy. What was it that you had put in place
that allowed you to finally take a proper holiday? Is it something
that agency founders really struggle with: That switching off.
00:11:14:61 - 00:11:29:89
PETE
We put in better processes, so that I wasn't the bottleneck. I'm
only the bottleneck now for a couple of things, and it's generally
new business and I was chatting to Matt from Platypus, recently.
He's taken a sabbatical over summer, which is just incredible. And
he was like: "I put the processes in place that anybody can do what
they need to do.
00:11:30:13 - 00:11:47:54
PETE
And the business should carry on when I'm not there." And that
really inspired me. We've got to make better strides towards: "OK,
well, if our technical director isn't there, what happens? Can the
world still move on?" We just really put an emphasis on putting
those autonomous processes in place so everyone has the ability to
pretty much do anything.
00:11:49:10 - 00:11:55:48
ELLIE
What is it that you are most excited about? Is there a project that
you are feeling all tingly and excited to get on with?
00:11:56:06 - 00:12:05:19
PETE
So we are currently working a lot with the National Caravan Council
so I know more about motorhomes, motor vehicles and anything in the
leisure vehicle sector than I should do.
00:12:05:33 - 00:12:06:86
ELLIE
[CHUCKLES] Does it make you want to get one?
00:12:07:39 - 00:12:31:34
PETE
Oh, I would love a camper van. That would be lovely. We are doing
some really great work for them on their internal tooling, but also
their public facing stuff. That's such a great sweet spot for us
because they're literally the UK's trade body for leisure vehicles
they represent that community vibe so much. We are excited that they
are slightly larger organisation that we then get to do more
experimental and more ambitious projects with.
00:12:31:55 - 00:12:46:37
PETE
So that's a beautiful project that we get to work on. We're working
on a few of them and that's probably our highest traffic platform
that we work on. So of all the projects we work on, it has the most
money flowing through it and it probably has the most users using
it. So it's a nice one to work on.
00:12:46:67 - 00:12:53:53
PETE
The team loved seeing the direct impact of when it went live - they
instantly saw improvements on what was happening before, so that was
a really fun one.
00:12:54:32 - 00:13:02:16
ELLIE
Well, that sounds amazing. Just to finish up Pete, what would be
your number one bit of advice that you would pass on to other agency
owners?
00:13:02:87 - 00:13:23:05
PETE
If you are a creative or a technical and you want to keep doing
that, find somebody else to do the other stuff. If you want to run
the agency, eventually you're going to have to drop being a creative
or being a technical person. I don't think you can grow your agency
to be super sustainable, while being on production, while working
day to day on the projects.
00:13:23:05 - 00:13:39:52
PETE
You can when you're small, you have to when you're small, but as you
grow? And if you are super passionate like: "I want to be working on
creative stuff every day." That's great. Become the creative person
and hire someone else to run the day to day. Hire an MD, let them
worry about cash flow and forecasting and talking to solicitors
because they will love that.
00:13:39:62 - 00:13:58:35
PETE
But if that's not your jam, then you focus on your thing. And I just
think they're very separate roles and quite often I see lots of
small agency owners and I feel like they're drowning because they've
never managed to step out of the day to day production of what
they're doing. It's really limiting for them because they just don't
have enough hours in the day to get that stuff done and recruit,
talk to their accountants and all that stuff.
00:13:58:39 - 00:13:59:73
PETE
So that would be my advice.
00:14:00:12 - 00:14:03:34
ELLIE
That's bloody great advice, Pete! Thanks so much. You've been
wonderful.
00:14:04:08 - 00:14:05:59
PETE
Thanks, Ellie. Lovely to chat to you.
00:14:06:44 - 00:14:16:91
Narrator
Thanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to
subscribe. Stay in touch. And if you like what you hear.00:00:00:11 - 00:00:10:46
Narrator
Welcome to the Agency Collective Tales with Ellie Hale: Our podcast
where we talk to our brilliant agency owners, about all things agency
life.
00:00:10:97 - 00:00:17:34
ELLIE
Today I am joined on the podcast by Pete Heslop from The Steadfast
Collective. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:00:17:58 - 00:00:18:42
PETE
It's great to be here.
00:00:18:78 - 00:00:29:34
ELLIE
Yeah, on the podcast at last! So first off, Pete, can you just tell me
how you got into the agency game? How did it start off? Because this
isn't your first go, is it?
00:00:29:62 - 00:00:53:64
PETE
No. So in 2012 I started as an agency with two friends, Joe Perkins, who
is part of Agency Collective and Matt Luke, and I've known Matt ever
since I was a child and I met Joe through Matt and essentially we tried
to launch an iPhone app, it kind of failed and essentially we realised
that between us we had design, development and marketing skills and
perhaps we should just build an agency.
00:00:53:83 - 00:01:11:63
PETE
That's what we did, we built BriteByte up to become a good size agency.
We grew that. Joe and Matt, really good friends and then essentially I
got married, Joe and Matt were my best men, and ushers at my wedding and
then I was sat in my new house with my wife and I was washing up one day
and I went: "I don't think this is for me anymore."
00:01:11:87 - 00:01:30:15
PETE
So I thought about it and then it all happened very quickly. I sat down
with Matt and Joe and had the little break-up talk and I said: "Look,
this isn't working for me. Design agency isn't quite for me. I need some
more space." So I stepped back and Britebyte is now thriving under Joe's
leadership. It's now rebranded as Chaptr, and they're doing amazing work
over there.
00:01:30:58 - 00:01:66:80
PETE
I started Steadfast Collective pretty much instantly, picked up a few
freelance clients and ran from there.
00:01:37:70 - 00:01:39:51
ELLIE
You were the Robbie Williams of the group?
00:01:39:86 - 00:01:44:97
PETE
Yep. But Chaptr is doing better now than it's ever been, so I think
it was probably good for the group.
00:01:45:65 - 00:01:50:26
ELLIE
[LAUGHS] What was it that you wanted that you weren't getting from
your previous agency?
00:01:50:59 - 00:02:11:16
PETE
I think for me, my passion was digital products. I really was
passionate about building the sorts of things we were seeing coming
out of Silicon Valley and the states and I remember one day being in
the agency at Britebyte with Joe and Matt, and we won this amazing
London client and it was design work. And I remember thinking: "I
just don't care. I don't care about design work."
00:02:11:17 - 00:02:23:46
PETE
It wasn't doing it for me, and my passion was really about more
backend development rather than front end. And that's ultimately
what I was doing before I started an agency - I was a back end
developer, and that's where my passions lay and so I wanted to focus
on that.
00:02:24:42 - 00:02:33:04
ELLIE
And so what was it like starting again, having built it up but also
having had a couple of co-founders around you, to it just being you?
How was that transition?
00:02:33:43 - 00:02:51:62
PETE
Yeah, it was really tough. Matt is one of the most talented
designers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Joe is
incredibly smart, so I went from having those kind of two cofounders
to going solo. And then very quickly my wife joined me on
the business. That's when we transformed from being Steadfast
Digital to Steadfast Collective was when she joined and we started
hiring.
00:02:51:86 - 00:03:09:96
PETE
It was incredibly daunting, but I was fortunate enough that I had a
good network around me of other agency owners. I had a vision of
where we wanted to go and I was quite fixed on that. Ultimately, I
wasn't running everything at Britebyte. So then from going to then
running everything at Steadfast was the big jump, but it was
something that I relished and I enjoyed the challenge of.
00:03:10:64 - 00:03:14:93
ELLIE
What was the vision and how close are you to that vision now?
00:03:15:66 - 00:03:39:86
PETE
The original aim of Steadfast Collective was to build an agency that
was small and profitable, and we could take the profits and go and
build IP so we could go to other SAS apps that would eventually make
recurring revenue. That was the plan. It was similar to what Ustwo
did with Mills and Sinx. They had the agency and they had the games
on the side, and then ultimately the games ended up being a massive
part of their business.
00:03:40:32 - 00:04:00:86
PETE
So for me, that's something that I really wanted to do, something I
was really passionate about. And so we focussed on from day one and
we still focussed on 20% of our team's time is focussed on building
out those SAS products, those internal things that ultimately
hopefully become a major part of our revenue stream. The only thing
that's changed for us is that focus on community.
00:04:00:93 - 00:04:16:09
PETE
So over the last couple of years the focus has really shifted to
being we really want to work with people who are focussed on
community and are passionate about that as what they do and we want
to work with those folks. That's been the main change for us over
the last seven, eight years.
00:04:16:77 - 00:04:27:35
ELLIE
So where did that niche come from? The working with communities, had
you had a couple of clients and thought this is the way to go? Was
it that you really enjoyed the passion that lies with community?
What is it about communities that appeal?
00:04:28:11 - 00:04:47:54
PETE
We had just gotten through the first year the pandemic, which hit us
really hard as an agency. As soon as Boris opened his mouth and
mentioned the word lockdown, we had other partners calling us and
just pausing projects, cancelling retainers, all of those good
things. It took a massive toll on mine and the team's mental health,
and it's probably something we don't talk about
00:04:47:54 - 00:05:09:04
PETE
enough as a team, but we all got incredibly burnt out. We picked up
probably too many clients, so we were fortunate. We did pick up new
clients during that early bit of the pandemic, but their deadlines
were unbelievably short and we were picking up clients we probably
shouldn't have done just because we thought that's how we're going
to survive. I found myself incredibly unwell: I couldn't open my
inbox, I couldn't wake up without feeling nauseous.
00:05:09:06 - 00:05:30:41
PETE
It was a really tough period, and eventually through family, through
my colleagues and through a fair chunk of counselling and therapy, I
got back to normal but we got to the end of that year, me and my
wife and the management team sat down and we said: "Let's not do
this again. What do we really want from this business?" And that was
the first time we decided this isn't an agency just for the sake of
being an agency.
00:05:30:70 - 00:05:50:31
PETE
This is a lifestyle business and in the agency world, that's almost
a dirty thing to say. The agency is there to serve me and my family,
our team and our clients, and then any overflow from that we want to
funnel into local community projects. That's kind of our map. I drew
this really sketchy circle diagram of how I was going to explain it
to the team.
00:05:50:42 - 00:06:08:92
PETE
We were like: "We should get a designer to redesign it." And we just
stuck with my sketchy iPad drawing. When we said that out loud and
we were like: "OK, what clients do we really love working with?" And
it was the ones that were leading communities. Quite often, they
were female founders who more often than not left their high flying
London jobs during their maternity leave.
00:06:09:09 - 00:06:25:16
PETE
This is a correlation through so many of our clients: Started a
business, it took off during their mat. leave. They stuck with it.
They built communities around what they were doing, and we were
like: "These are the people, these are our people. These are the
ones we love working with and these are the ones we're delivering so
much value to."
00:06:25:70 - 00:06:35:40
PETE
So they're the ones we went after. And that community of smart,
creative folks who are high flying in their jobs but have decided to
start out on their own. That's our crew.
00:06:36:22 - 00:06:37:79
ELLIE
Isn't it amazing when you find your people?
00:06:98:12 - 00:06:48:39
PETE
It really helped us focus. I think it brought a lot of stability to
the team because they understood what was going on. It brought a lot
of stability to me, a new business because I knew who we were
talking to. It's very reassuring.
00:06:49:12 - 00:06:56:03
ELLIE
So since you made that decision and thought: "Sod it, this is who we
want to work with, this is who we are." How has the business
developed since then?
00:06:56:88 - 00:07:17:95
PETE
We have grown. We have hired, we've had, like all agencies, highs
and lows. Since we made that decision, we've had our record month
for sales, for turnover, same with quarter. And we are now at a
place of stability and clarity. So we know where we're going. We
know how we can get there. We have the runway to do it.
00:07:18:40 - 00:07:31:52
PETE
I think the next step is how do we build out that community further
to better serve those people? So it's given us the confidence to
really make big steps into that decision. I go all in and I think
that's carried us quite far.
00:07:32:53 - 00:07:34:83
ELLIE
And have started your own community.
00:07:35:47 - 00:07:58:23
PETE
So we launched Summit because I think we've been working on for a
little while now. And essentially Summit is a space for unexpected
entrepreneurs to come together and learn because what we were
finding was folk that are building these incredible communities are
so good at what they do, whether it's cross stitch, whether it's a
community of solicitors, whatever it is, they're so good at that
thing.
00:07:58:63 - 00:08:15:89
PETE
But what they sometimes lack is those digital skills to approach an
agency. So Summit was designed originally as a video series, and
then we expanded out to a whole community hub, which we're launching
later this year, and we want to just help those people make good
decisions. Like: "Here's the six red flags you should know about
when you're appointing an agency.
00:08:16:28 - 00:08:33:31
PETE
If they're asking for like a 90% deposit, maybe that's a red flag.
If they're not going to give you a contract, red flag." And we're
just trying to help people make those decisions. If they've never
done it before, because working in the digital world, if everything
you do is normally tactile and tangible, which often is in
communities, can be really daunting.
00:08:33:31 - 00:08:46:85
PETE
So we wanted to build out these guides and build that community. And
for us, the next step would be starting to run in-person events,
those sorts of things. But it's a little out of my comfort zone.
It's quite daunting. I've never been a community manager, so it's
quite different to my normal day to day.
00:08:47:76 - 00:08:55:57
ELLIE
I'm here for any tips, mate. So what do you think has really helped
you on your agency you found a journey.
00:08:56:24 - 00:09:29:86
PETE
I have been completely shameless in asking people for help, so we
are fortunate in Southampton, which is where I'm from. There is a
really good network of agencies down here, large and small, along
with I've got some really good agency friends who I met through The
Agency Collective, whether that's network agencies or small
independents like us. And I will pester them and I will ask them
questions and I will book in regular time with them because they've
been there, they've done that and being able just to understand:
"Oh, okay, I've got this pretty scary letter just come through the
post."
00:09:30:09 - 00:09:49:82
PETE
"It doesn't matter. We get them all the time." "When should we think
about moving from our local accountant to a proper firm?" All of
those decisions. There's that classic thing in the agency world,
which is feast or famine. You have real highs and lows and knowing
that the next sale will come at some point is really reassuring to
someone who is still fairly young in agency world.
00:09:50:71 - 00:09:55:69
ELLIE
What is next for you guys? What are you looking at for the future,
for the next couple of years for you guys?
00:09:56:28 - 00:10:17:44
PETE
I think for us we are making strides to becoming more autonomous and
more profitable and hopefully those things go hand in hand. So for
the first time this year since the business started, I took a
holiday where I didn't take my laptop. That was a massive step for
us. We've hired a great ops manager who handles everything clientside,
everything post contract being signed is his responsibility.
00:10:17:72 - 00:10:45:30
PETE
That was a big step. And we're remote anyway as a team. Being able
to step further and further back from the business is feeling really
good and it's feeling like we're heading towards something which is
sustainable rather than being relient on myself and Rachel, which is
really good. And that leads onto: The more profitable we can be as
an agency, the more efficient we can be, the more focus we can put
on Summit and the other ventures we're trying to launch, which will
ultimately then turn into recurring revenue, which will then
eventually turn into us having less pressure on the agency side.
00:10:45:87 - 00:11:02:37
PETE
I don't imagine running an agency into retirement. I imagine running
a software business: A mix of agency and that recurring revenue. So
for us it's how do we get that blend just so there's not all of our
eggs in one basket and there's less pressure on the entire business.
So that's some of our next steps.
00:11:03:85 - 00:11:13:92
ELLIE
I think that's really savvy. What was it that you had put in place
that allowed you to finally take a proper holiday? Is it something
that agency founders really struggle with: That switching off.
00:11:14:61 - 00:11:29:89
PETE
We put in better processes, so that I wasn't the bottleneck. I'm
only the bottleneck now for a couple of things, and it's generally
new business and I was chatting to Matt from Platypus, recently.
He's taken a sabbatical over summer, which is just incredible. And
he was like: "I put the processes in place that anybody can do what
they need to do.
00:11:30:13 - 00:11:47:54
PETE
And the business should carry on when I'm not there." And that
really inspired me. We've got to make better strides towards: "OK,
well, if our technical director isn't there, what happens? Can the
world still move on?" We just really put an emphasis on putting
those autonomous processes in place so everyone has the ability to
pretty much do anything.
00:11:49:10 - 00:11:55:48
ELLIE
What is it that you are most excited about? Is there a project that
you are feeling all tingly and excited to get on with?
00:11:56:06 - 00:12:05:19
PETE
So we are currently working a lot with the National Caravan Council
so I know more about motorhomes, motor vehicles and anything in the
leisure vehicle sector than I should do.
00:12:05:33 - 00:12:06:86
ELLIE
[CHUCKLES] Does it make you want to get one?
00:12:07:39 - 00:12:31:34
PETE
Oh, I would love a camper van. That would be lovely. We are doing
some really great work for them on their internal tooling, but also
their public facing stuff. That's such a great sweet spot for us
because they're literally the UK's trade body for leisure vehicles
they represent that community vibe so much. We are excited that they
are slightly larger organisation that we then get to do more
experimental and more ambitious projects with.
00:12:31:55 - 00:12:46:37
PETE
So that's a beautiful project that we get to work on. We're working
on a few of them and that's probably our highest traffic platform
that we work on. So of all the projects we work on, it has the most
money flowing through it and it probably has the most users using
it. So it's a nice one to work on.
00:12:46:67 - 00:12:53:53
PETE
The team loved seeing the direct impact of when it went live - they
instantly saw improvements on what was happening before, so that was
a really fun one.
00:12:54:32 - 00:13:02:16
ELLIE
Well, that sounds amazing. Just to finish up Pete, what would be
your number one bit of advice that you would pass on to other agency
owners?
00:13:02:87 - 00:13:23:05
PETE
If you are a creative or a technical and you want to keep doing
that, find somebody else to do the other stuff. If you want to run
the agency, eventually you're going to have to drop being a creative
or being a technical person. I don't think you can grow your agency
to be super sustainable, while being on production, while working
day to day on the projects.
00:13:23:05 - 00:13:39:52
PETE
You can when you're small, you have to when you're small, but as you
grow? And if you are super passionate like: "I want to be working on
creative stuff every day." That's great. Become the creative person
and hire someone else to run the day to day. Hire an MD, let them
worry about cash flow and forecasting and talking to solicitors
because they will love that.
00:13:39:62 - 00:13:58:35
PETE
But if that's not your jam, then you focus on your thing. And I just
think they're very separate roles and quite often I see lots of
small agency owners and I feel like they're drowning because they've
never managed to step out of the day to day production of what
they're doing. It's really limiting for them because they just don't
have enough hours in the day to get that stuff done and recruit,
talk to their accountants and all that stuff.
00:13:58:39 - 00:13:59:73
PETE
So that would be my advice.
00:14:00:12 - 00:14:03:34
ELLIE
That's bloody great advice, Pete! Thanks so much. You've been
wonderful.
00:14:04:08 - 00:14:05:59
PETE
Thanks, Ellie. Lovely to chat to you.
00:14:06:44 - 00:14:16:91
Narrator
Thanks so much for listening. Please don't forget to
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