E12: Nigel Davies

Richard [00:00:07]:
Hi there, I'm Richard Hill, the host of Agency Intensive and welcome to episode 12. Today we're talking creative peaks, painful pivots and brand clarity with Nigel Davis, ex WPP design veteran, co founder of boutique agency 300 Million and now the one man force behind Pin Creative. Now, Nigel helped scale his London shop from three founders to 25 staff, a multi million pound turnover and then unfortunately watched it crumble. Twelve years on, he's thriving as a specialist consultant and using a 6000 vinyl record collection to explain branding in four words or less. And he had a few print records in there, so he's a good chap. Let's get into it. We COVID rapid growth lessons from renting a market loft to hitting the wall at 25 headcount. The danger of 60% revenue from one client and why Diversifying beats doubling down.

Richard [00:01:00]:
Interesting take. Factory versus WoW delivery, hiring admin too early versus hybrid support. How Nigel would rebuild an agency in 2025 and resetting as a solopreneur consultant. Very, very deep dive on this one. If you enjoy this episode, hit, subscribe or follow wherever you're listening. So you're always the first to know when a new episode drops. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. Hi, Nigel, how you doing? Welcome to the Agency Intensive podcast.

Nigel Davies [00:01:30]:
It's lovely, lovely to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Richard [00:01:34]:
Looks nice and sunny where you are in the world.

Nigel Davies [00:01:36]:
Well, yeah, it's sort of one of those spring days. I mean, that's sort of. Hopefully winter's over and we're starting to see a bit of sun.

Richard [00:01:43]:
Fabulous, isn't it? This last week, it's like a switch has been flicked and the positivity seems to be rising and rising with this weather, with this nice weather, weather we've been having in the uk, lighter evenings.

Nigel Davies [00:01:55]:
And all that sort of stuff.

Richard [00:01:55]:
Oh, lovely. And it finish work and you can actually do a bit of something outside. It's coming. Clocks are changing. Love it. Well, Nigel, I think before we get into the trials and tribulations of agency life, I think it'd be great for you to introduce yourself to our listeners and how you got into the world of agencies.

Nigel Davies [00:02:13]:
Yeah, great. Well, hi, I'm Nigel, I'm now an independent brand consultant. So I've been working by myself for the past 12 years just as a small agency, pin creative. So small it's an agency of one person. But my background in design in general, really, I started really working within what was probably called graphic design and corporate identity back in the very early 90s and worked at some of the larger London businesses, ending up working within the WPP Group, which is at the time was one of the biggest, I guess, networks of agencies around. Our company was called the partners that we worked at. And that just gave me loads of experience and I ended up kind of just making friends with a few of the people. And, you know, we always, like all these branding projects are always done by very small teams of people in reality, no matter what size the agency is.

Nigel Davies [00:03:09]:
So we, we just kind of like got together, hung out quite a bit, formed an electronic pop band and decided that actually doing that as a living probably wasn't going to get us anywhere. And we formed a business. It was called 300 million. This was in 2003. And yeah, we built that company from, you know, just the three of us to, you know, 25, 20, 25 people, you know, couple of million turnover and, you know, had a good time. But, you know, without spoiling the story, we didn't last forever, obviously. Ah, that's my back.

Richard [00:03:43]:
Well, that's why we wanted you on, I think, you know, it's obviously, you know, the, the reality of running any business, especially an agency, you know, it's a chart, they're challenging business to run. You know, there's a lot of ups and there's definitely a lot of downs and a lot of stuff in the middle. So, you know, we're going to talk about some of the stuff that maybe doesn't get spoken about the reality of running any business, really, but obviously, great, great story there. So, obviously started at an agency, part of a big agency group, you know, in the agency world, ypp, huge group. And then went off and set up with some colleagues. So you started a band with your colleagues that I did. You mentioned big music fan then?

Nigel Davies [00:04:20]:
Yeah, well, we'd sort of just, I think because we used to spend a lot of time together, you know, in the big agency world. You were working late and, you know, we spent a lot of time, private, you know, personal time. And yeah, we all had a love of music, so we just sort of were messing about and I think it was more of a bet, to be honest. Someone sort of said, you three just hang out like you're in a band. So we formed a band, did a gig, wrote some songs, why not? But, you know, it was. The original name of. It was going to be Poor Man's New Order, if that gives you an idea of what the type of music was. But we did a gig and it's like it was.

Nigel Davies [00:04:56]:
It was so Complicated plugging in all the computers and things that. Yeah, actually, we thought running an agency would be. Yeah, we thought running an agency would be a lot easier.

Richard [00:05:06]:
Yeah, probably, probably. I think if I've got to choose running my agency or being in a band, I would be. I would. I don't know what I would do. I'd probably carry the lead singer's guitar or something. It would be my. I'll be the roadie, the driver.

Nigel Davies [00:05:17]:
Yeah.

Richard [00:05:18]:
Shocking. Shocking. I get dragged into karaoke every now and then when we go out on team nights and it's just like, where's the door? I need to get out of here. So obviously we're going back, you know, quite a few years there, you know, over the period of your sort of career to date. But let's. Let's dive into, obviously set up the agency, obviously got some working with and decided to set up an agency with a couple of colleagues. So three of you, I think you said, so step us through, sort of what you would do. What were you actually doing in the agency? What were the.

Richard [00:05:50]:
What was the focus was obviously you mentioned about perfect design and branding in your first role. Was that what you were doing?

Nigel Davies [00:05:56]:
Yeah, so definitely it was a. It was a design. A brand design offer was. Was definitely the intention. And I think, you know, we all fell into our roles. We had a person who was like, more the creative director, someone who was probably a bit more people and strategic and I think I was the oldest and, you know, like, you know, when people sort of, you know, looking for volunteers and everyone should. Someone should step forward and everyone steps back. It was a bit like that when we needed the managing director.

Nigel Davies [00:06:25]:
So.

Richard [00:06:25]:
Like the apprentice.

Nigel Davies [00:06:26]:
A bit like the apprentice. So, yeah, I became, I guess, de facto managing director and, you know, I was. I was happy about that, I've got to be honest. And so I took on more of the business responsibilities, more of the financial type responsibilities and that sort of thing. And, you know, whilst the other partners were building the creative and the team and that, you know, and that went really well. I mean, we'd sort of, I guess, got a bit of a visibility for ourselves and just sort of cracked on with it. I think was. Was probably the term we say quite.

Richard [00:07:03]:
A specialist clientele then, quite a specialist offering at the time.

Nigel Davies [00:07:07]:
Yeah, I think that was one of our challenges is really sort of nailing what the offer was. But we. We came up with this thing eventually around kind of creative intelligence, around kind of using branding in sort of clever, creative ways. So. But I would say if you think about what branding's like now, it was probably more focused around brand identity creation would be the. Would be the thing as opposed to the, the wider offer and stuff like that.

Richard [00:07:36]:
Yeah, yeah. So very much I'm set up with colleagues and sort of very much your own specialisms, but no doubt mucking in where needed in the early days, do whatever's needed sort of thing. But obviously we talk quite a lot on the podcast about scaling, you know, to different sizes, whether that's getting to your first 10, 20, 30, whatever, the head count and obviously turnover. And some of these numbers are just very arbitrary. You know, ultimately, you know, you want a profitable business ultimately, but obviously scaling quite quickly. I think you said to 25 plus people, you know, how did you manage to do that? What were some of the key things that you did? Yeah, enabled you to scale quite quickly.

Nigel Davies [00:08:18]:
I think, I think the first, the first phase was we. We sort of just got quite active and got ourselves out there and we just, you know, here we are, we're ready to, to do, to do work. And as I remember it now, there's kind of a bit of interest and I think this often happens and when you start a business is that initial kind of rush of people going, oh, there's something new in town, let's go and have a look, see what they're doing. I think we were fortunate because we knew quite a few people and whilst clients weren't supposed to come with us, some of them did that we'd been working with, which obviously had its challenges as well, but it meant that we just had that sort of instant platform. I think the other thing that we did that was reasonably significant is that we got an office space in Exmouth Market. I can't remember the square footage, but it was pretty big and it was pretty impressive. And so people probably thought we might be just in some dodgy basement with some laptops. This was 2003, remember? But they came around and it was like we were the top floor of this factory, like building that had sort of expansive views and I think people just going, oh, this is proper, this is serious.

Richard [00:09:34]:
These guys, they're actually not some guy in his basement.

Nigel Davies [00:09:37]:
Yes, yeah. And even though there was only three of us in that room, it meant that, you know, there was space, there was space to grow and, and actually, you know, that's one of the things is that you then start thinking about filling that space and Yeah, I guess.

Richard [00:09:52]:
It'S an interesting interest in like, like now, obviously, fast forward, obviously 20 odd years, you know, Having an office, not having an office, you know, is quite a talking point, you know, with obviously a lot of remote working. But. But I think. I think when you sort of gotta look like the prospects and the people you're trying to attract, and if you've got a nice office and a nice space where there's a community aspect of your team working, you know, people coming and going.

Nigel Davies [00:10:20]:
It was a good location. Yeah, it was a good location. People wanted to go there. Exmouth Market, which is now even like trendier than it was back then, and I think that was probably a bold decision. I can't even remember how we financed that. We probably just saved it for a week. And that was probably quite a big.

Richard [00:10:35]:
Decision at the time.

Nigel Davies [00:10:36]:
Well, yeah, I think it was, yeah. Sort of put everything into that and then. Yeah, that then helped us to almost, as I say, like, kind of show our intent and then actually fulfill that intent. I think, you know, without again jumping to the end of the story, we probably overreached a bit. So this. This factory, like, building had four floors in it. By the time we closed the business, we had three of the four floors. We had enough space, probably food for 60 to 80 people, but there wasn't the work to fill it.

Nigel Davies [00:11:08]:
We just kept on taking space.

Richard [00:11:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot, isn't it? I think, I guess, obviously a lot of lessons learned there now. Obviously going from zero or three of you, I guess, from three to 25, quite quickly. What advice would you give to the listeners around sort of headcount scaling, you know, on the people side? Hiring, hiring, maybe firing and, you know, hiring and speed of recruitment.

Nigel Davies [00:11:36]:
So definitely, I think one of the things is we've got kind of some loyal people in first. Got some loyal people in early who were almost like committed to the cause. Clearly used quite a lot of our connections and freelancers, placement type. Type connections. So. And people wanted to work with us so that. That getting people wasn't really the problem, I think.

Richard [00:12:01]:
Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:12:01]:
Kind of when we got to about a team of, I'm gonna say eight, eight to 10 people, so three of us plus five of the people, that was definitely. That happened really rapidly. In fact, we got Design Week's kind of fastest growing Business of the year award, which is kind of really weird award because it was all done on percentage growth and stuff. But it meant that we had a. We had a. Had a. Had a. Had a business around us then.

Nigel Davies [00:12:28]:
We probably by that point had a couple of advisors. We probably had one admin person helping us. So we Were quite profitable because we were all doing work. I think the biggest challenge is sort of that next phase sort of I would say from 12 to 20. As you, as you start to need to grow your support and the feed billing becomes less of a percentage certainly of our time we spent more. I spent more time running the business by that I know one of my other partners spent a lot more time dealing with people and things like that. And so you, you get to this sort of stage. I reckon this is creative agency.

Nigel Davies [00:13:13]:
Obviously you know, 15 to 20 people when you need a lot of admin support but they're not really fee billing and that, that becomes a problem and you need to sort of break through that because I think the admin type of admin that we had would have provided enough for a company of 40 people. But we had them with 15 to 20 people. So we had a finance person, we had an HR person, we had an admin person, we had more project managers. And that becomes, that really sort of crushes your profit. That was the big.

Richard [00:13:46]:
Yeah, I think that's a great, great sort of insight and advice to the listeners. Obviously you know you need some support for some of the non billable but obviously is then what support do you get you for hiring in somebody full time to start with. That can be a challenge on the cash flow, it can be a challenge on the profitability. Your utilization rate of billable hours is going to take a hit. So it's whether you then, you know, if you were to do it again now that sort of, I guess your advice would be along the lines of hiring a different sort of dynamic, a different, you know, full time, part time as you start to scale or split roles or.

Nigel Davies [00:14:25]:
I think, yeah, I mean so some of the, some of the admin, I know that the HR and the finance support, they were, they were part time. So maybe a couple of days a month or a couple of days a week. HR I think was a couple of days a week or so. I think the biggest difference now obviously is we none of us use the term hybrid. None of us used. I mean it's interesting, isn't it because Skype is just announced it's going out of business. Yeah. And it launched in 2003, the year that we launched.

Nigel Davies [00:14:56]:
I think.

Richard [00:14:57]:
Yeah, we lived on that. Yeah, yeah, we lived on it for about five years.

Nigel Davies [00:15:01]:
Yeah, we did, we did international work but we never, we never really. We might have done one or two Skype calls as a novelty. But now, you know, the term, as I say the term hybrid is the way that you would set it up, I think I would still create a, A, a hub for where people can go and meet and then make that a really kind of cool central focus. I wouldn't, I don't regret that investment, but what we certainly didn't need to do was create space for 30 people. You know, we only needed space for 10 people and we could have kept it at that and that would really help. And some of that admin type support can definitely be more, more remote. But I definitely would want people to be coming in and meeting regularly and getting the vibe.

Richard [00:15:50]:
Yeah, it's a good, I think the vibe, you know, when you, however you want to sort of explain it, but it is having a central spot where there's, you know, the hq, whether it's a, you know, HQ sounds very grand. I think we, you know, we refer to our head office as a HQ or our offices. HQ is our only office, so it is naturally our hq, but it's a beautiful spot. It's got a real energy about it when everybody's in. Obviously, if clients want to come in, they can, you know, we've got various boardrooms and whatnot and meeting rooms and different spaces where we can have a breakout and whatnot. And then we're part of a wider community. Our offices are within, you know, a co working space. There's another 150 odd people in the building on like really busy day.

Richard [00:16:31]:
So that community aspect is good for the individuals, good for the business. Obviously it's attracting businesses that want to have a look around. Oh, there's a hive of activity, just a very positive energy around a lot of these spaces. You know, I've been to, I was in Nottingham last week or a couple of weeks ago, went to a similar space, scoping out some office space that way. It's just great. Whereas obviously a lot of people do work from home still, you know, so many days, some more than others, but. But to be able to have that hub for the team, for clients, also for the brand, you know, I think it's a, you know, a lot of people, I know we'll never have an office and I think, no, we're the, we're the opposite. We will never not have an office would be my stance.

Nigel Davies [00:17:12]:
Yeah, yeah, I think I'd agree with that. I mean, interestingly, one of our early thoughts was that we were getting this. We got as far as looking at a space, I think, at one point, so we'd have this sort of vision idea that why don't we have our Business in a pub, which might sound kind of quite crazy. Oh yeah. But it's almost like during the day we use the pub, you know, the pub doesn't open till 6 or whatever, but during the day you use the space for meeting rooms and it's just like a good sort of vibe and you know, maybe later on all the chairs get moved back and it becomes a bit of a nightclub. But that sort of notion of having somewhere that is just enjoyable and attractive and pleasant to be in was definitely in our mind and I definitely want that still.

Richard [00:17:58]:
Yeah, well, I love it. I love our office, you know, and I think we've got people that, you know, when obviously we were all working from home or four years ago, whatever it was, you know, and then obviously slowly coming back, you know, one day, two day, three day. But now the people, you know, we obviously have a handful of people that prefer to work from home or did prefer to work from home, but we're finding they're coming in, even those guys are coming in more and more and more to be part of, part of something more. So, you know, that community friendships, obviously teams, obviously they can go off into, you know, whereas we're in the middle of Lincoln City. So you know, you're in the city center and go off and do whatever personal things at lunch or after work, go to the cinema or whatever you want to do, go out with your mates there. That community aspect I think almost got obviously swept aside three or four years ago because you didn't have a lot of choice. But yeah, we'll never, we'll never change. So just going back to, going back to the journey then so obviously scale very, very quickly and then, you know, some, some challenges, let's say, started to appear.

Richard [00:18:59]:
But then on the sort of, let's go back into sort of that money, money piece around profitability. Obviously looking back around, you know, how, what would your advice to be to agencies around remaining and retaining profitable.

Nigel Davies [00:19:16]:
Yeah, so I think is, yeah, so, so the, the challenge was the non, the non billable time.

Richard [00:19:24]:
Yeah, actually, yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:19:26]:
And I think the non billable senior time because without doubt I think people are, you know, getting involved in an agency for the, the people who are running the agency and you just need to make sure that you are charging as much as you can for those clients. It's very easy for like me as a managing director or any of my other partners at the time to sort of win work based on, hey, you know, we have a cool agency and then that work to then get passed to a Junior team and for you then to go off and win the next bit of work. The client's not happy then because they're not seeing you. But the reason they're not seeing you is because you haven't built that fee into the project, which is maybe why you won it in the first place. So I would probably say is make sure that you both allow in the budget and allowing the time for those senior people because without doubt I'd be more profitable than anyone else because in any of the senior partners would. Because we charge more, we're more efficient, we can do more and all those things really and the team actually can be the least profitable because they take sometimes take a long time to do things and they're not very chargeable. They're not. You can't bill them out at high enough rates.

Nigel Davies [00:20:40]:
So no, I think. And then the obvious thing, and I think this is, was, was the challenges that we did work with, you know, some consultants and some designers that would help us but I don't think we build them out kind of accurately enough or profitability profitable enough.

Richard [00:20:59]:
So different billable hours for different seniority within the team. So you obviously got them more say junior or mid. Then you've got your managers, your heads of departments, your directors, owners, potential different rates. But then I know some agencies then they, they do that but then they maybe have a blended rate as well. So when they're quoting sometimes can be right. The, you know, you've got an hourly rate from 80 to 300 pound whatever depending on where you are in the world. But then the blended rate might be sort of nice 130 an hour or whatever. Obviously depending on what you, what you do and where you are.

Nigel Davies [00:21:32]:
I think we were always told that you know, some of our advisors, it was roughly that your. If I remember. Yeah. I think this is pretty right. Is that your employee should be earning you three times what you're paying them. That should be what you're aiming for. And I think that probably still stacks up and that gives them time not to be working because no one can work 100 billable. So that's, that's the sort of.

Nigel Davies [00:21:54]:
Yeah. Fallacy. But yeah, I was going to say the, the over relying on freelancers becomes an expensive train. But then also hiring people can be expensive when you need to get rid of people. That's. So it's all, all those that you know, employee, you know, kind of pressures and cost is definitely one of the, you know, biggest, biggest sort of problems.

Richard [00:22:21]:
Yeah. So. Okay, so some great advice there I think obviously being very aware of your utilization rate is a sort of word, I think the industry term we use. And so you've got that utilization and different people have potential, different utilization rates. So obviously as the owner, founders, etc, it's hard, it's harder to have a high utilization rate, although your hourly rate will be a lot higher probably than most of the team. But then you've got team members that are doing a lot of work. You know, they're literally just, you know, in the, in front of the screen doing 80 maybe of their time is billable but obviously then you end up with a, a good average rather than a lot of people having no billable. Yeah, so we have a handful of people that are non billable, like 4 I think in the agency, then we've got 20 or 5 ish that are billable but they vary in their rates, you know, obviously their hourly rates but also their utilization targets.

Richard [00:23:14]:
And then each individual has a utilization target. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:23:18]:
And I think again like going back to that sort of mid growth period, the non billable people were quite a large percentage of the agency, whereas they would become a smaller percent. So the cost of them, if we were 30 or 40 people would have been, no, would have been tiny compared to only 15 people.

Richard [00:23:37]:
I think it's, you know, you've alluded to it there that sort of the different, you know, we talk about this on other episodes but obviously getting to certain head counts and the certain numbers and I think the number, you know it can be when you get to say 35, 40, you know, it can be a lot more profitable, you know, because as you've alluded to, you know, you've got certain roles that maybe, you know, you're not, they're not been maximized because you haven't got enough work in that area of the business when there's maybe 15, 20, 25 of you. But then when you get to 34, 35, 40, you know, you can be, you can maximize the team. So therefore you're a lot more profitable. Yeah, yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:24:17]:
But also you've got a bigger machine to feed and you need more business.

Richard [00:24:21]:
So I guess that's when you know it's that step where you know, going back to something you said earlier was obviously when you're sort of mid size as the founders, you still, you've got to watch the, you've got to watch the utilization rate which means you as the founders, as the owners or owner are quite often making sure that you've got some billable work. But when you get into the sort of 25s plus it's making sure you've got a team that can deal with a lot of the senior, you've got really good heads of departments, really good people, so then you don't have to do that. But it's that transition piece, isn't it? But it's quite tricky. It's quite tricky because you, you sort of got to do it to pay the bills maybe, but then you don't really want to do it because you want to grow past that. So you've got better people in place that can manage the bigger conversations, bigger projects. Yeah, yeah, interesting one.

Nigel Davies [00:25:09]:
And definitely, you know, a couple of things that help are, you know, building the, you know, we haven't really talked about clients but the client relationships are really important and if you can build some long term client relationships that you can almost service on an ongoing basis. I think one of the challenges with maybe even just maybe our approach to branding, it sort of ended when the brand had been created and this is not uncommon brand. So do all that work, you create the brand and it goes off into the world and someone else then has a two year, three year relationship delivering the brand. And so you're constantly looking for new work and new projects and then, then letting it go. I think we used to talk about, you know, having a sort of the factory element delivering, you know, brands and the wow element being the creative bit of factory. Well definitely concept that was I remember from the time that one of my partners came up with. But everyone wanted to work in the wow department. No one wanted to work in the factory.

Nigel Davies [00:26:13]:
Yeah, but actually factories can be really productive and really, you know, really profitable if they're really well run. And actually the albits where everyone's being creative can be, can be really good fun but not very profitable.

Richard [00:26:25]:
Yeah, there's a lot of noise.

Nigel Davies [00:26:27]:
Yeah.

Richard [00:26:28]:
So I mean obviously you built, built to sort of 25, you know, ish people, you know, a few million pounds turnover to step me through maybe. So obviously some really good times. But then obviously it got, you know, obviously we spoke before we came on, it got a bit tricky let's say now maybe step us through. You know, I think there's the people piece but then there's the type of work that you were working on and the sort of what your advice would be. Obviously if you're, you know, there's pro, there's projects, there's retainers and then the size of retainer and size client and reliant on, you know, Obviously you, you've spent a lot of time in the trenches there. What would your advice. Yes, what was your.

Nigel Davies [00:27:11]:
Yeah, I mean one, one of the things that did have an impact was. And I think we were surprised by this and this was. Would have been 2007 when the labor government got kicked out and we'd got quite a few government based contracts, particularly property development and they went, they went overnight. I mean literally they just, just that just got shut down. And I think maybe, you know, we're in our 30s also naivety around what's happening in the world and the impact it might have. We, I don't think any of us had really seen coming. So, so I think again, you know, everyone will talk about having a balance of, of, of diet of clients but maybe think because the government contracts we had to ages to, to actually convert into that relationship but it can go overnight. And so that, that was one thing.

Nigel Davies [00:28:07]:
I think we should have had a little bit more awareness. But we also had some, you know, we had, we had one particularly, you know, really big client towards the end and it was the classic kind of. Well, this client is now basically paying for our agency. You know, it's basically funding the agency, I would say well like 50 to 60% of the income. Which is, which is ridiculous. The fact that you've just done that. Yes, that's how I used to feel. And that we, we saw, here's an interesting.

Nigel Davies [00:28:44]:
So we saw building a stronger relationship with that client to actually give us long term sustainability. So we actually sat in a meeting. This was probably I reckon about four, five, four years maybe before we closed and thought the only way we're going to survive as a business. We'd been through this bit of a mini challenge because of, I think we'd done some redundancies and stuff was actually to get close to this big climb because it was a miss. It was like you look around, where's the food going to come from? It's going to come from there. So we managed to create that relationship and it was really good for two or three years and then that disappeared completely and then that was really problematic. But it was, it was just hard to keep the, keep the machine being fed. And so again you don't always get to choose things in, in an agency or in any business, you follow the circumstances and that was.

Richard [00:29:41]:
It's a quandary, isn't it? You know, if, if any agency owners obviously there'll be a lot listening. You know, a bit of work is put in front of you and it is 25 of your turn, let's say you're doing 100 grand a month, easy maths, and then all of a sudden you get offered a bit of work for 25k. Of course you take it, don't you? I don't think there's a, you know, obviously there is an argument to not take it, I guess, but you take it 25k. You maybe don't need to hire anybody to do it. You know, it's going to stretch the team, but in a good way, you know, it's a good opportunity. So a lot of that goes on the bottom line, potentially, you know, 20 grand, 25 grand goes on the bottom line and all of a sudden you've got another 20 grand net, you know, profit in effect in the business. And obviously that's great. You know, 612 months down the line you put a couple of hundred grand in the bank.

Richard [00:30:31]:
Maybe that's probably quite, quite an exaggeration, but. Because you no doubt invested it in a few things, but, but you've had a good year, but then you've maybe hired one or two people and you've sort of, you know, 20% is a good number, I think, to, you know, as a net profit within an agency. So that is your net profit for the whole year, that one client. But then when that client potentially leaves, you've gone from making 20 grand a month or 25 grand a month to making nothing. You now break even. So it's a head of a risk, isn't it? It's had of a. So you've sort of got to try to insulate yourself from that, but it's not easy. It's obviously putting cash in the bank is one way of doing that.

Richard [00:31:08]:
So if, when that day comes, they leave, but obviously trying to look at the contract you've got with them, make sure that contract is, you know, benefits both of you. It's not obviously a month in, month out type thing and you get a bit of a warning if there's going to be a chance to, to move out of that contract or for them to exit that contract, but obviously try to win other business that's of a certain size. But it's a bit of a quandary, isn't it, you know.

Nigel Davies [00:31:33]:
Yeah, I mean, it's the ongoing challenge. I think the other thing I'll just sort of add into that as well is that one of our sources of income, and again, this is not uncommon in agencies, is through profit from marking up production. So typically, you know, you place some print ten grand print. You might make a, you might make five grand on or you might make that two grand or whatever. But yeah, if, if you're doing quite a lot of that a year, I think, you know, some years the, the profit margin, who were achieving some of that was coming through the, the production. I, I was never really that keen on that because that's like. That's not earning money from doing work, it's just earning money from like commission.

Richard [00:32:17]:
Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:32:17]:
And yeah, I don't see that as being the same level of profitability as earning money from being profit from actually providing services. And I sort of go against that model these days. I'm not, I mean, I mean, I'm independent, but I would never see that as a, as a, as a sensible way to generate revenue, income and profit just through that type of thing. I think it's a false, false profit almost. It's a nice bonus.

Richard [00:32:46]:
Yeah, it's a bonus, isn't it? I guess it's like when you look at that total turnover, if you've got, you know, you've got a certain amount of project work, certain amount of retainer work, obviously if you're more design web devices, you've got a lot more projects usually. And then they, they come, you know, they. At some of the men and obviously trying to then add retainers to those projects, you know, is usually where we see quite a lot of success with other people we've spoken to. But ultimately then every. There are different things that can be very profitable, you know, that, you know, where you're not selling time, you sign the end result ultimately where, you know, if you're, in your example, if you can, somebody wants something printed and you've got a good relationship with a printer and it costs you 10 grand each, like for 15, but they're still getting a good deal. That's good business. But it's. Yeah, it's, it's almost too easy money, isn't it?

Nigel Davies [00:33:33]:
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's sort of. That's all right.

Richard [00:33:36]:
Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:33:37]:
But I'd just be very wary of that as a, as a model for anyone say. It's almost like a side thing, I would say make, make cool, make the core bit of your business profitable based on the skills that you're providing to your clients.

Richard [00:33:52]:
That's so.

Nigel Davies [00:33:54]:
No, that's.

Richard [00:33:55]:
Yeah, totally, totally agree. So obviously, I think the listeners will be really intrigued to sort of step us through. Obviously you built it to a certain size and then obviously you mentioned quite a few challenges there, but then obviously things took A quite a turn with, I think, you know, as you say, that. That really large client causing some challenges, you know, and then sort of step us through the last few years in the agency.

Nigel Davies [00:34:18]:
Yeah. So when the big client sort of kind of. And the big client didn't fall away overnight, but it went pretty quickly. And we did manage to kind of. Because we were always doing business development, we were always looking at new opportunities. It's like the constant thing. So it wasn't like the tap was suddenly turned off, but we actually replaced the big client with another big client. And I think that was possibly the mistake.

Nigel Davies [00:34:45]:
Looking back, thinking about it now, which I. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about this, by the way, but we probably. I probably should have maybe gone for more of a. Like, building it from, like the start again and actually probably should. You know, like everyone sort of says redundancies, you know, cut hard, cut fast, you know, all that sort of thing. We probably should have approached it like, let's do. Let's do this as a startup again, rather than actually repeating the same thing.

Richard [00:35:12]:
Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:35:12]:
Because when that second, when the new big client kind of fell away, that. That was then the end. That was fairly rapid, I think. Well, it went rapid. It was probably. The writing was on the wall, probably six months. And then within, when we closed, we did a cva. There was.

Nigel Davies [00:35:31]:
There was enough money in. I mean, one of the things that I, you know, we were all actually, not just me, but we were all kind of keen was to make sure that the staff. So by that point, the. The headcount was down to about 15. Make sure everyone who'd been working for us got their full payouts, their redundancies. Some people have been with us for 10 years or quite nearly. So that was all dealt with. I was probably less bothered about the tax man, but obviously the taxman kind of wants their money.

Nigel Davies [00:36:00]:
But there was quite a lot of money left in the business to make sure that, you know, some people got their payments. There were some people obviously didn't get their payment, which is unfortunate. And, you know, there's not a lot I could do about that. I could have left it going for a couple of months longer and no one would have got anything. And I wasn't. I wasn't gonna do that.

Richard [00:36:22]:
Difficult times. Yeah, you know, very.

Nigel Davies [00:36:24]:
Yeah, Sad, sad. But what I would say is that, you know, most. A lot of the people, you know, the. The partners have gone on, done their great things. I'm doing my thing that I'm enjoying, you know, Some of the people, you know, we still had a good network so we could find them. Things to do. Yeah, it's just that that was just the end of it. And you know, it's probably sounds like.

Richard [00:36:48]:
You did the, you know, the, the amicable thing. You know, obviously things got difficult and they do, you know, I've been doing this a long while and been, been through similar processes, you know, many years ago. And it's, you know, sometimes, you know, I was in business in the same, you know, 2006, seven, eight, you know, very tough years, you know, and very, very challenging. But sort of how you do, how you try to handle those situations obviously says a lot about you as an individual. Obviously making sure that. And it's not straightforward. Obviously, if there's no money in the bank, it's very difficult to pay anybody. Obviously looking after the team, the relationships, the, obviously a lot of friendships try, you know, if the, if the finances allow it, to make sure the team are, you know, are looked after.

Richard [00:37:32]:
And then ultimately sometimes the HMRC does come out. It does have to come last within those situations. I think that's how it works. But. Yeah, but obviously now that's almost a lifetime ago.

Nigel Davies [00:37:44]:
Feels like it. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard [00:37:46]:
But I think, you know, thank you so much for sharing that because I think, you know, it's really important that, you know, I, I talk to a lot of agency owners. We had, we had a lunch a few weeks ago with 10 agencies, agency owners, and, you know, it's tough out there. It really is tough out there. And it, you know, and it's, you know, that, that sort of resilience, you know, to sort of bounce back during those tough times, you know, says a lot about an individual and you have to have a very, very thick skin in agency and just running a business full stop, you know, there's a lot going on, you know, we could turn on the news and you'd, be, you'd be, you really wouldn't want to set up a business at the moment. But I, I say turn off the news and crack on with it. But, but obviously now you're very much doing a different, you know, you're out of, out of the agency world, but doing very similar work, but independently. Tell us about what you're doing now and how that came about.

Nigel Davies [00:38:33]:
Well, I guess sort of, you know, the immediate aftermath, you know, still bit like when we set up, there were still relationships out there. So, yeah, I did some work with some, you know, sort of new clients and I think, I think initially I thought I Might try and build a little mini agency again. Yeah, but actually I was. What I realized is that as when I was managing director, I. I didn't spend a lot of time doing the work and I really enjoyed the work and I really enjoyed, you know, because we had a great creative team, great directors and things like that. I didn't do a lot of the design work anymore, but I quite enjoyed that part of it. So what I did was a little bit more of that. Obviously, as an independent, you do.

Nigel Davies [00:39:18]:
It's like more mini strategy. It's not like six months or 12 months. It's like, what can we do in a few weeks to help understand what the issue is and then deliver some creative. So design. Yeah, I only go as far as guidelines and then, you know, that either gets passed to the client or. Or it gets passed to a partner to sort of deliver. So, yeah, been doing that at a. It's a bit more rapid and just sort of more enjoyable being direct.

Nigel Davies [00:39:48]:
I mean, as a managing director. And again, this is probably a failure of me, if I'm thinking about it now. I didn't have much relationship with clients because I had so much going on in the business and I should have spent more time with clients, even though we had client directors, because they would. They were labeled client directors. But yeah, I think that now I'm sort of much more dealing direct with clients. I think one of the things that's definitely helped me is, and I talk about this, is that, you know, I kind of love creativity. Obviously that's my background, but I also kind of really love business. So, yeah, I understand business deeper maybe than people who have just only done design throughout their life.

Nigel Davies [00:40:27]:
So I can have better, more meaningful conversations with now with people about their businesses. And more recently, as in the last last few years, I've been developing kind of, I call it untangle your brand, but it's a way of demystifying branding for business owners. But it's really important to me that it's, you know, it's. This is for business, this is helping businesses and be much more direct as opposed to maybe like when we were part of an agency, like we're doing like sort of really cool branding stuff because it was cool branding stuff. Maybe looking back on it, and it was cool, but we probably weren't as involved in the businesses as much as maybe we could have been. We did this.

Richard [00:41:11]:
I think that's really good. Sort of, you know, thinking back, you know, thinking about the listeners, you know, it's just keeping your, you know, Keeping some time that you are connecting with the clients. You know, I think as you're going through those, you know, we talked about, you know, 10 employees, 20 employees, 30 employees, 40 employees. And as that starts to grow, you can soon get disconnected from. Yeah, maybe the realities of the problems that you're trying to solve as an agency. So like, you know, we talked about having the off, you know, if those guys that are listening, if you've got that office environment, obviously it's a little bit easier to. When a client's coming in, just to pop in, spend 10 minutes and keep connected to, you know, and get a feel and a vibe to the temperature of things and the actual work. And, you know, I think I.

Richard [00:41:58]:
That's very much how I try to do it. You know, if any client comes in this building, you know, I make a point of just knocking on the meeting room. Hi, guys. I don't think we've met, but I'm Richard. Nice to meet you. Meet them. But then obviously having a genuine interest in the project, you know, and, you know, now why not be doing the work for. For sure.

Richard [00:42:16]:
But I'm very interested in what we're doing, where it's going, what the results and where that business is and what they're. What they're about and how, you know, I might be able to add value to the team that are working on it. Not necessarily do the work, but look, you know, help them, give them a steer. Guidance. Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:42:34]:
There was definitely a couple of clients that. The only time I met them was when they were complaining about something. Yeah. And you know, game I'd get sent in because.

Richard [00:42:44]:
Yeah. Not nice. Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:42:45]:
And it's not nice for anyone, really. And that. That I think was probably a mistake.

Richard [00:42:49]:
Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:42:50]:
Looking back.

Richard [00:42:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. So obviously now you've got a lot of time to listen to that amazing record collection that is behind you. So I think we've got it. I'm gonna have to hold my prince book. One or one of many. This thing called life Electric world Life it means forever but that's a long time.

Nigel Davies [00:43:06]:
And I want to tell you something.

Richard [00:43:08]:
Afterwards, something else I work, though. Who thought we'd be singing that. We did.

Nigel Davies [00:43:14]:
He. If it was going to get the.

Richard [00:43:16]:
Guitar out there.

Nigel Davies [00:43:18]:
You know, it's gonna be all right. So. Yeah, so, yeah, so I mean, it's actually interesting that. So that, you know, first thing you noticed was the records when you came.

Richard [00:43:27]:
Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:43:28]:
Yeah. So I've sat in this room, probably working, you know, since I became independent. I work here and I work in A. In an office space as well. And it was only during lockdown when you used to start doing zoom meetings and people started asking about records. I'd never even noticed they were behind me because they're behind me. And people started asking me, that's why you said, are they records? And other. Yeah, because there's all those fake backgrounds that people are.

Nigel Davies [00:43:55]:
Yeah, yeah. And then I would always say, just like, start this meeting. What's your favorite musical artist? And they'd say, like you said, Prince. And then I'd just pull out a record. Wow.

Richard [00:44:02]:
Just like magic. It's like we prepped it, but we definitely did.

Nigel Davies [00:44:05]:
But we definitely didn't prep it. But I've got, yeah, 6,000 records and I've got.

Richard [00:44:09]:
No way.

Nigel Davies [00:44:10]:
Yeah. I mean, this is just a small part of it.

Richard [00:44:13]:
That's like a portion. Yeah.

Nigel Davies [00:44:14]:
Wow. And I did like.

Richard [00:44:16]:
I did like the. When I. When I. When you said, oh, what's your favorite artist? I said, prince. And then you said, which album do you want? I'm thinking, well, he's got about 60 albums or something. Ridiculous.

Nigel Davies [00:44:26]:
Yeah.

Richard [00:44:26]:
And you've probably got them all, then.

Nigel Davies [00:44:28]:
Yeah, well, I don't have all 60. I do have, you know, obviously.

Richard [00:44:31]:
Do you have the Black album? Because that's the.

Nigel Davies [00:44:33]:
I do. I do have the Blackout Match.

Richard [00:44:36]:
Do you?

Nigel Davies [00:44:36]:
I do. I've got a copy. I'm fairly sure I've got a bootleg.

Richard [00:44:39]:
Copy that's a couple of grands worth from. If I'm.

Nigel Davies [00:44:41]:
No, I don't. I don't think. I think that might be a bit of a fallacy, but I will. I will double check and let you know. I do have the bootleg version for it. Okay. I've got the. The bootleg version of Parade called Charade.

Nigel Davies [00:44:56]:
Have you got that?

Richard [00:44:57]:
No, no.

Nigel Davies [00:44:58]:
So it's like an. It's an. It's like additional kind of tracks and stuff from that period.

Richard [00:45:04]:
Got that. It's a shame I'm not doing this from home because my. My background at home is. Is. Is a book. My bookcase. And they're real books, but a whole row is just prints. Just prints Prince albums.

Richard [00:45:17]:
Yeah. I don't know how many, but, yeah. Massive fan. Brilliant. So do you. Do you have the records on them when you're working away?

Nigel Davies [00:45:23]:
I don't. I don't. I've got a turntable next to me. I've got a turntable in the other rooms and stuff. But, like. No, it's. It's too fussy. But I do listen.

Nigel Davies [00:45:31]:
Listen to music but, you know, it's become. It's become a big part of now, you know, music. When I talk about branding, I talk about emotional connection. You know, making that. That's what you try and do with a brand, create that emotional connection between your product and your customer. But I can talk to people. So if I said to you, describe Prince to me in four words, what would you say?

Richard [00:45:54]:
Sexy.

Nigel Davies [00:45:55]:
Sexy.

Richard [00:45:57]:
Unique.

Nigel Davies [00:45:58]:
Unique.

Richard [00:46:00]:
Genius.

Nigel Davies [00:46:00]:
Genius.

Richard [00:46:02]:
Outrageous.

Nigel Davies [00:46:03]:
Outrageous. So sex. Unique. Genius. Outrageous. And most people can do that about a musical artist, someone that they've spent a lot of time thinking about. All you get the answer is, oh, I like everything. But generally people can talk about music that they love really quickly because they've got that emotional connection.

Nigel Davies [00:46:19]:
You then ask them the same question. I'm not going to ask you this, you don't need to answer this. But describe your brand, your business, in four, six.

Richard [00:46:27]:
No.

Nigel Davies [00:46:27]:
Yeah, yeah. But they really struggle, they really struggle with simplifying it down. But if they can't do that, then their customers can't do that. So your, your responsibility as a, as a someone creating a brand is to ensure that people get it and understand it in the same way that you get and understand prints and if so. And I just use that as the guess. It's like an icebreaker about what branding is all about now.

Richard [00:46:50]:
Yeah, yeah. Love it, Love it. Well, Nigel, it's been an absolute pleasure. I feel like we could reminisce and chat for hours about agency life and business and branding and. But we've come to the end. I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book to recommend to our listeners, Nigel?

Nigel Davies [00:47:10]:
Oh, yes, I don't, don't have it with me, but I will. There's a book, it's called A Technique for Producing Ideas. I will, I will put it in. I'll send you the link. It was written, I think, in 1920, something like that, and it's a really good book. It's really slim, short, but it's like the secret of creativity, technique for producing ideas. And it was written by this sort of new New York ad agency guy who just sort of said, this is all you need to know about creativity. And it's as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago, whenever it was probably.

Nigel Davies [00:47:49]:
So I'll send you, I'll send you links that. A technique for producing.

Richard [00:47:52]:
Yeah, we'll hook that up in the show notes. We'll link that up to, to, to be able to order that for those that want to buy that, which I would love thank you. For those that want to find out more about you, Nigel, more about what you're doing now with the. With the agency and with your. With your branding side, what's the best way to reach out to you and find out about.

Nigel Davies [00:48:10]:
Well, I think most people find me quickest on LinkedIn, so Nigel Davies, that linked it on LinkedIn. The. The website is pincreative.co.uk the Untangle, your brand is untangleyourbrand.com but they're all connected as part of the same thing. So, yeah, I'm sure you'll get linked in for that, but, yeah, we'll link them all. LinkedIn is definitely one of the easiest things.

Richard [00:48:32]:
Well, thanks for coming on the show, Nigel. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Nigel Davies [00:48:35]:
Yeah. Enjoy your day. I'm going to listen to. Guess what I'm going to listen to this afternoon. 100%. I'm going to very much enjoy that. That. Thank you.

Nigel Davies [00:48:45]:
Cheers, Richard.

Richard [00:48:45]:
Thank you.

Nigel Davies [00:48:46]:
Cheers.

Richard [00:48:46]:
Bye. If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or Follow button wherever you are Listening to this podcast, so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day and I'll see you on the next one.