Agency Dealmasters Podcast

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

David Crawford is the founder of the Digital strategy unit. If there is anyone who can bring us to date and give us an accurate account of the lessons and learnings from the last 6 months, it’s David Crawford. He has actually written an excellent piece related to this on LinkedIn called 6 from 6. The link is in the description. A couple of interesting highlights from his post: 1. The steering wheel is more important than the accelerator 2. Don't Do One Thing Well - Do It Brilliantly! 3. There really isn’t any room for passengers   We talk about: The shock and awe of the early days and how the best agencies responded. Confidence is rebounding The importance of Cash in the bank Reevaluating office space. Do we actually need all that office space? Client relationships - the deeper and stronger relationships with your clients the better - trusted partner status. We learned a lot about our people - who adapted well and who didn’t. Probably the biggest learning has been, Jim collins or Blair Enns

Mandy Merron is a partner at Moore Kingston Smith. They are one of the Uk’s leading accountants and business advisors, with over 500 employees and 60 partners. Their network spans 30,000 people across 100 countries. They have been around since 1923. Mandy now runs the media business which is now over 100 people. If you are remotely interested in: Growing your services firm, value prop, new business M&A Recruitment of top talent The key stages of growth in creative services firms What we learn from other recessions that we can apply now We go really deep into how to win new business, she spends a lot of time talking to clients about their value proposition and finding the right TRIBE of client. She has some fascinating ideas on how to win new business. She says new business is really an attritional process, you need to keep delivering it day in day out. If you’re interested in any of that then this is the podcast for you. 

Karish Andrews is a Partner at Lewis Silkin a top 100 Uk law firm, he also spent 3 years at the Magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.  We discuss: Agency M&A Building value back into your business Who’s buying all the creative services firms today Diversity and inclusion in the legal profession  Modestly, he says wasn’t talented/creative enough so he became a lawyer. The goal of Lewis Silkin is to become the best employment law firm in the UK and to become the Best firm for clients in the creative industries. We also discuss: Pre COVID it was a seller's market How EBITDA and profitability has gone down for many agencies Uncertainty in the market, not only COVID but Brexit which hasn’t been discussed, Trump reelection, China trade war The impact of COVID 19 on Lewis Silkin Why some deals don't go according to plan The importance of leadership and culture. He talks about D&I in the legal profession and says, if we imagine we’re scaling a diversity mountain, gender diversity would

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

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: What buyers

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 McQueen is the co-founder of Q-Squared. He is an expert in leadership communication, workplace culture and presentation skills. He consults and speaks with senior leaders all over the country including, a certain Sir Richard Branson. We discuss the challenges for all minorities as they climb their professional careers in the UK but David pays particular attention to the challenges facing black professions. He sites that across 800 partners in the top 5 law firms in the UK only 4 are black. 3 of those 5 are not British born. Of the top 4 consultancies, EY, Deloitte, PWC and KPMG of 1500, only 27 are black. He says this is not about ticking a box, UK corporations have promised opportunity that for those that get on, work hard, they can do well but many have not followed through on their promise and are failing a lot of black and ethnic minorities. This is just such a fascinating conversation concerning everything from the fall out of events of recent months and back lives matter to everything else i

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 fina

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 mastercla

Lucy Snell is the co-founder of Cherry a new business and marketing consultancy for digital agencies. She’s helped agencies win new business for over 20 years.  This was a tour de force conversation covering all things new business. We discuss everything from: The process of winning new business How to build a strong pipeline selling in this environment hiring new business people How to use social selling Why we’re so scared of picking up the phone She’s helped win business in pretty much every sector both in the UK and globally. I've worked with all types of creative agencies, across every discipline, of all shapes and sizes from global networks to start-ups.  She has helped win business with big brands such as Rolls Royce, AstraZeneca, Aviva, Channel 4 and SAS as well as smaller, challenger brands. Lucy also created The Agency Growth Academy which is a hybrid online training programme teaching agency owners how to do new business themselves. It’s aimed at smaller agencies that can’t afford to

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.

Jessica Manintire and Natalie Moores are the co-founders of a fantastic communications agency called Mac & Moore. Where do I start, in 2016 on the back of the doom and gloom of Trump, Brexit, they really wanted to see a change in the world so they set up the agency. They were in-house at agencies before and worked with a tech startup that failed, and at that point, they joined forces and decided to do something a little bit different. About 3/4 of the way into the interview Jess quotes an author who says, i’m completely happy when my brain, heart and gut aligns and I think you’ll hear that come through in their stories. They truly live their purpose and have built an amazing business around it.   We discuss everything from: What profit and purpose actually means How to get purpose right Black lives matter Why female founders need to be more resilient that their male counterparts. Launching a business in 2016, although 2016 seems calm and uneventful by 2020 standards If you are remotely interested

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: How to create stories that move people Creating meaning in people lives 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.  

Tim Doust has been in the Media & Marketing industry for over 30 years, his biggest achievement to date has been launching Inferno (one of London's leading integrated agencies). They have now been merged into a global network. Their belief is: 'The world needs more interesting' will still remain the same but they now have the support of 150 countries behind them. Their main goal is to make their clients' business grow and flourish. He is now the co-founder of R&D and Pablo, helping brands with a broad spectrum of brand, business and growth strategy, and leadership consultancy challenges, setting the business on the path to a defined future outcome.

Martin Palethorpe is the founder and executive coach at the Pragma Group, they are a team of high-level Executive Coaches & Consultants, working with CEOs and CxOs. He is passionate about inspiring and challenging CEOs to be better leaders, to achieve their potential building healthy high-performing teams & organisations. His teaching about the Human Mind is at the core of his work. He’s also an adventurer, having raced to the north pole and run across deserts.

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: Best new agency as rated by Oystercatchers Start-up agency of the year - The Drum Best in diversity & inclusion - The Drum 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 succ

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: The interesting ways tech businesses are pivoting  How business when we come out of this The opportunity within the

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: How Channel 4 benefit from talent and diversity  Diversity and Inclusion at The Telegraph  How to get more inclusive businesses  Blockers and how to overcome them Why he doesn't like the word 'Diversity' Colin's silver linings  Enjoy the chat

Shazia Ginai is the CEO of Neuro-Insight. They are a neuromarketing and neuro analytics company that uses unique brain-imaging technology to measure how the brain responds to communications. This allows them to deliver unique consumer insight, and reveal how a piece of design or advertising is affecting people at both a rational and an emotional level. We discuss: How the brain works Influencing human decision making Leadership becoming CEO of a multimillion-pound firm at 36 Female leadership and underrepresentation of minorities in media If you’re a marketer in any shape then get a cup of coffee and clear some time in your calendar. Enjoy the chat.