E001: Stephen Kenwright

Richard Hill [00:00:07]:
I'm excited to introduce you to our first guest. From co founding Rise at 7 in 2019, building to a 110 people, 7,000,000 in revenue, and then exiting all in 3 years, we welcome Stephen Kenwright to the Agency Intensive Podcast. We get into it life after the exit, super growth, positioning, hiring 1 new team member a week, and a glimpse into what's next, and so much more. I hope you love this down to earth chat with Steven. And if you can do me one favor, 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. Now let's head over to this fantastic first episode.

Stephen Kenwright [00:00:55]:
How we doing? Yeah. Good. Great. Good.

Richard Hill [00:00:58]:
How about yourself? I'm very well. Thank you. Good. So I think the first time we did this was, circa two and a half years ago. Mhmm. I think fairly deep lockdown Yes. For Ecom at 1 podcast. And here we are two and a half years later Yep.

Richard Hill [00:01:13]:
On our first episode of Agency Intensive, our our podcast all about agency life. Debut. Yes. No pressure. Fingers crossed. You do a good job.

Stephen Kenwright [00:01:22]:
I'd be I'll be back in 2 and a half years if I do.

Richard Hill [00:01:24]:
Well, I remember, but our chat from 2 and a half years ago Mhmm. Fairly fairly well. And, it was a blinder of an episode, so it was a bit of a no brainer to get you on the the new podcast agency intensive. And, obviously, you don't live too far away from us No. Which makes life, nice and easy. Yeah. Too simple. So so thanks so much for coming over.

Richard Hill [00:01:42]:
So, I think to kick things off, it'd be great for you to sort of introduce yourself and how

Stephen Kenwright [00:01:46]:
you got into the agency world and bring us up to date. So I, like many people, accidentally joined agency land. Right? I set so I did English at university and then did a master's in Shakespeare really because I didn't want to work. Like, I didn't want to leave university. I have no idea what I was gonna do. And I was just doing copywriting on the side, and the agency I was mostly copywriting for just got acquired, like, at the exact moment that I was about to leave uni and needed a full time copywriter. So I moved to Manchester straight out of, Sheffield Hallam uni and was there for a little while, got into SEO as being part of the copywriting that I was doing, lots of, you know, ads, but also, SEO copy as well. And then joined Branded 3, which was a specialist SEO agency in Yorkshire.

Stephen Kenwright [00:02:39]:
I wanted to get back to back to my now wife. We had a long distance relationship at that point. 7 years there, actually. Yeah. Awesome. Started started entry level, $14 a year, building links, and was, yeah, worked my way up to, strategy director fairly quickly, actually, because, again, that agency got acquired as well.

Richard Hill [00:03:00]:
So So when you started there, Hamlet, what was the sort of size of the agency then? I was the 33rd

Stephen Kenwright [00:03:05]:
33rd. Employee.

Richard Hill [00:03:06]:
Yes. That that grew to?

Stephen Kenwright [00:03:09]:
250 when I left, but that was partially branded 3 itself grew to about 70, 75 people. Yeah. And being part of a plc merged in other agencies. So I've got to see the kind of organic growth from, you know, actually growing the agency with with the team there, but also then the m and a with Yeah. The agency. And because 3 other agencies into what became Kin and Carta, edit, 250 people, and then is ultimately Kinn and Carter 1500 now. So big big agency now. Wow.

Stephen Kenwright [00:03:40]:
Yeah. And then? Then, I, got to the stage of my life where me and my wife wanted to start a family. So agency life, particularly pre COVID, was not really helpful for that when you're in sales particularly. And and if you're an agency leader, you're in sales. Right? So Yeah. I was in hotels 3 nights a week on the road all the time, and I I wanted to be home, basically. So I went in house. I'm not saying in house is easier or slower or anything like that, but it is in one place.

Stephen Kenwright [00:04:15]:
You're in one office.

Richard Hill [00:04:16]:
You're not going all over the country that often. Yes. It suits that lifestyle that you you you wanted at the time. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:04:22]:
Yeah. And that didn't work out. And, I was there for a few months, not quite sure what I was gonna do next. So I thought, we'll do we'll do what we know best and started Rise at 7 with with Carrie Rose in 2019. I'm not gonna say on a bit of a whim, but we thought we should do this. And then a month later, we'd done it, and it was a bit late by that point.

Richard Hill [00:04:43]:
Bit of a well, let's give it a go type thing. Yeah. Why? I'm not gonna Yeah. So and, obviously, fast forward to today, you know, you've obviously, left Rise 7. But in the sort of as you left, and, obviously, that was soon after we spoke actually a total two and a half years ago. Yeah. And, obviously, at that point around that point, you're sort of a 110 plus Mhmm. People.

Richard Hill [00:05:06]:
I think it was 7 +1,000,000 a year agency. You know, what would you put that down to? Because I saw that's almost like a meteoric 2019 to 2000 and where what's the timeline? 22? Yeah. I left in 22. 22. So 3, give or take, 3 years from 0. Or you and Carrie Rose, 2 people Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:05:26]:
To a 110 people

Richard Hill [00:05:28]:
Yeah. And 7,000,000. What's the what would be the key levers you think that enabled that? Well, marketing Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:05:34]:
For 1. Yeah. Agents is generally not very good at marketing themselves. And I don't just mean communications, posting on social, that kind of thing. I mean, actually having a marketing strategy. So market research, which does you can do a survey, but you can just talk to a bunch of people, and we we were pretty clear about who who, our market was. So we had a a good segmentation. We knew who we were targeting.

Stephen Kenwright [00:05:57]:
We positioned ourselves well, and we knew everything from kind of what our price point should be through to where the people who we need to talk to actually live, so to speak, on online. So really a proper marketing strategy would be one of the the big key things. Yeah. And that that marketing is, like, not just for how do you win clients, but it's also how do you win people over who want to you know, are looking for a place to work. And and it's positioning yourself for that market as well, which I think we did a good job of. And then recruitment, we we got some fantastic people. Like, the the percentage of people we had that were really good in such a short space of time, we were we were blessed because we were in Sheffield as well, which is not a competitive place. Mhmm.

Stephen Kenwright [00:06:47]:
So there were a lot of good people with not a lot of good places to work.

Richard Hill [00:06:51]:
Mhmm. Right.

Stephen Kenwright [00:06:52]:
And so we were the kind of only game in town, and then lockdown happened. And then when we went more, certainly nationwide and then global, we were the only game in town, and everyone else stopped hiring. So we had access to some amazing people that we just wouldn't have at that stage of the agency's development otherwise. So, yeah, I mean, marketing and recruitment are 2 of the difficult things anyway, but we we got those right.

Richard Hill [00:07:15]:
So you make that sound very straightforward.

Stephen Kenwright [00:07:18]:
It's straightforward. It's not easy Yeah. But it is straightforward. And, you know, the the formula of, well, how do you do marketing? It's it's literally taught in universities. It's a thing that's been around for 70 years. You can learn how to do marketing. And then recruitment, again, it's like a lot of it comes down to actually empathy and really trying to work out who do you want to appeal to, and what do those people want, and how do you walk the walk as well. And, you know, not easy, but

Richard Hill [00:07:45]:
it is So had you identified a specific set of clients then that you wanted to get in front of? So a top 20, 50, that type of thing?

Stephen Kenwright [00:07:53]:
Yeah. And, originally, me and Carrie wrote down our top 20 clients and just started marking them off when whenever we spoke to them. That was not scientific. It was like, we think these clients are around the right size for us, which means they have the right setup from a marketing department point of view, a marketing agency mix as well. We were a specialist agency, so, you know, we couldn't feasibly do a good job for a client where we're their only marketing agency. They need to be doing other things beyond us. So we had this kind of list to begin with. As we grew, every time we hired someone, we asked for 5 dream brands that they wanted to work with.

Stephen Kenwright [00:08:30]:
So yeah. We aggregated a table, so we had literally a league table of the clients that we wanted to go after. Yeah. And I think out of the top 10, we won about 5 of them, and they were huge, huge brands.

Richard Hill [00:08:41]:
So you're engaging with the new team members when they're even in the interview stage maybe as well. So they're they're thinking, oh, I'm gonna get to work with my dream client. I really wanna work here even more so.

Stephen Kenwright [00:08:50]:
It's it's true. But, I mean, you've gotta you've gotta play that both ways as well because, you know, you're talking about the kind of clients we have, and that's really exciting. But you've also gotta talk about the clients that you have that are not exciting in different ways. So I remember many times having conversations where I might just so just so you know, our biggest client is boohoo group. If you have a problem with that, you know, they pay they would be paying your wages, and they'd be paying 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 other wages as well. So that's not gonna change Yep. If that doesn't feel like the kind of brand you want to work with, whether it's fast fashion or whether it's the news stories that were breaking at

Richard Hill [00:09:25]:
the time Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:09:26]:
That that's not that's not going to work for us, and it's not gonna work for you. And likewise, that league table of dream clients, like Pornhub was number 3. Bear in mind, this is a 75% female business. It still made it to the top 3. Get them as a client? We did not. No. No. Something similar ish,

Richard Hill [00:09:44]:
I think.

Stephen Kenwright [00:09:45]:
But, But, but, again, it was, like, trying to get the pulse of the business about what who they do want to work with and making sure that when we're talking to people, you know, talk about cultural fit. Like, these are the kind of clients we work with. If you don't like that, then you are not a straight to that point of view. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:10:01]:
Yeah. So you identify the clients, or potential clients. You then obviously working with the the new team members that are coming through, and obviously identifying who they wanna work with, building this list out. Yeah. You know, I think that everyone would have been on a long thing. Yeah. That's that's that's straightforward. We don't identify the people, but then, obviously, identifying them and taking them from complete stranger or maybe not complete stranger, but, you know, not known to the agency that much at that time.

Richard Hill [00:10:25]:
Obviously, now so absolutely and and years years in. But then getting in front of those people, you know, what would you say to people that are listening? You know, they're they're gonna build their dream list. They're gonna look at building their list of people they really wanna work with. And you obviously talk about positioning or the culture of the business, but sort of more maybe actionable things in terms of getting in front of the, you know, you want to win Boohoo Group or their equivalent of Boohoo Group. How would you right? What would you recommend to do that?

Stephen Kenwright [00:10:54]:
Well, the first thing I would suggest is if you wanna win Boohoo Group, you look like Boohoo Group. Yep. You don't look like HSBC. That's one of Carrie Rose's favorite sentiments, and I think that was pervasive to the whole business. Yeah. You know, a lot of the clients that we did win had that kind of mentality, that kind of audience. You know, they were talking to potentially younger, probably female audiences primarily, as well as some other audiences. So, you know, when we're winning Fintech clients, it's Klarna and Monzo.

Stephen Kenwright [00:11:22]:
It's not HSBC and Standard Life Investments, which I'm more used to working with at at my previous ages. Yeah. So, you know, it's it's very much trying to understand the personality of the brands you wanna work with and matching that personality. What me me and Carrie bounced off each other really well with this kind of thing because what I'm good at is outreach, and I'm happy to talk to someone. And Yeah. You know, there's certainly no automation in that. It's a much more, find a good reason to talk to someone and talk to them about that good reason. And and don't bother people when they don't wanna talk and keep finding excuses that are gonna add some value to that conversation as well.

Stephen Kenwright [00:11:59]:
What Carrie's really good good at is making sure that they're connected on LinkedIn, make sure they're following on social media, and then just constantly looking like the right kind of agency, the right kind of person to solve those problems, and it comes in time. You know, not always is that client that's your dream client in market at that point, and that's just that's just marketing. Right? 95% of your audience is not ready to buy. Or they are.

Richard Hill [00:12:24]:
Yeah. And they're oh. Absolutely. So okay. You've you've identified the guy, the the potential clients, your, you know, your your brand, your fit, your culture is fitting with these people. You know, they're aware of you. You then get them in a in a room, you know, whether that's a Zoom back then or whether it was, you know, like, now you're you're you're sitting in that room and you're they've identified these companies, I guess, based on on a on a fit commercially as well Yeah. So they so they can warrant the sort of retainers and the values that you wanna you know, if you've got an average, you just sort of have, like, a like a, what do you think about a client on a yearly basis? Did did you have a sort of specific value as sort of, right, we need to make sure that each client's circa 100 k? Or Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:13:08]:
And that would be usually the the conversation starter. And I I do mean, like, kind of a starter. When we're in initial qualification

Richard Hill [00:13:17]:
with the we expose to the client.

Stephen Kenwright [00:13:19]:
Or I mean, in terms of identifying who we'd like to work, but, I mean, so much of the business is inbound when you're such a marketing focused business.

Richard Hill [00:13:26]:
Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:13:26]:
People find you out, and so you don't have the luxury of knowing every single business that you get in touch with. Yeah. They're actually the ones getting in touch with you. So there's certainly some research, but, I mean, in qualification, it's literally being upfront about what kind of fees that you charge. Yep. You don't wanna waste their time. You don't wanna waste your time. So you

Richard Hill [00:13:46]:
a a money conversation before, I think the peep way before them coming in, you spend maybe 2, 3, 4 days preparing a pitch. You there's been a discussion about finance before they come in?

Stephen Kenwright [00:13:59]:
There will be a discussion about finance in the first phone call. Yep. And it Yep. It won't be necessarily how much is your budget per se. I mean, that's what we'd love to get to, but no one ever tells you. So

Richard Hill [00:14:12]:
You might have to you would then maybe have to say, well, our fees start at.

Stephen Kenwright [00:14:16]:
I I would usually say, you know, we've got, clients ranging from boohoo who pay us £1,000,000 per year all the way down to brands like you that are x, y, and zed that pay us, you know, at least a $100 a year. Yep. Whereabouts in that spectrum do you find yourself? You know? Is that is that outside of what you were anticipating? And, you know, I don't think as well you can you can get a little bit distracted by minimum fees because not every deal is going to come in with a 500 grand contract. It might come with a 5 grand contract, but you've got to understand, is there the potential there, and does that client agree that what they're looking for here is a long term partnership that will cost about x Yeah. And not just a one night stand that's gonna cost Yeah. $5.

Richard Hill [00:15:04]:
Yeah. For 3 months and then it's over. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really interesting. I think a lot of people, you know, when they're on that growth journey, it's about that positioning piece and, obviously, those maybe semi awkward question or conversations that need to be had early on. So you're sort of, not spending a lot of time on proposal pitch process, potentially. I think quite a lot of agency founders find that quite challenging, but I think, yeah, you gotta have those conversations.

Richard Hill [00:15:29]:
But, like, you've explained it very eloquently. It's it's can be quite easy to have those conversations.

Stephen Kenwright [00:15:35]:
Yeah. Absolutely. You don't get to make money if you're not comfortable talking about money.

Richard Hill [00:15:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. So you're now in the room with these guys. They know, you know, the the sort of fee structure, should we call it? So sort of converting these big brands, any sort of tips around sort of, delivering a really good presentation and and pitching?

Stephen Kenwright [00:16:00]:
It that's a that's a more varied question because the ideal is always to not present at all. And, RISE, because of its positioning, because it was unique in the marketplace at the time, you know, the marketplace moves very quickly. And and and certainly, the agencies with a lot of money can catch you up quite fast. But, you know, certainly at the time, we were with very few alternatives, so we didn't often pitch pitch. We'd have case studies. We'd explain Yeah. What we do and how we do it, but there would be no creative, speculative pitch. There would very rarely be any real analysis of the problem.

Stephen Kenwright [00:16:38]:
Mhmm. We are trying to understand the problem from the client's point of view. Is that a problem that we're qualified to solve? Because we've got smarter people than me in the office to solve that problem. Yeah. And I want them to be paid for it. I don't want to solve it for free and then get someone else to do it the way that I would have done it Yeah. When that way might well be better.

Richard Hill [00:16:58]:
So we're not without pitching it ideally Absolutely. Case studies, brand, the culture Yeah. What you've you know, the sort of the historical, work that you've done with clients.

Stephen Kenwright [00:17:11]:
It's not always possible. Yeah. And it really does depend on the kind of situation you find yourself in. When you are a marketing focused business, you can find yourself ahead of an RFP. Yep. So the big problems are usually, certainly, the type of brands that we're used to working with will be quite well established. They might well have professional buyers, procurement, etcetera. When it's a competitive pitch with procurement involved, we knew we wouldn't win, so we didn't try.

Stephen Kenwright [00:17:40]:
Yeah. That's not to say that it's impossible to win procurement led deals, and we have in the past, but by that point, there's a preferred supplier. It may or may not be yours, but the aim is really working out if it is us.

Richard Hill [00:17:53]:
And that's usually the opposite of what you said at the beginning. You've gotta then demonstrate, do a lot of work, prepare a lot of

Stephen Kenwright [00:17:59]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:17:59]:
Maybe creative or whatever it may be.

Stephen Kenwright [00:18:01]:
And, fundamentally, it's at odds with my view of what sales is. We're not here to persuade anyone. We're here to make sure that we're a good fit for solving the problem that that client has got. And and that's ultimately a marketing thing, being really clear all day, every day on social media and on your website and anywhere else that you choose to do your marketing. These are the problems we solve for clients like this. If you that is you, get in touch. If that's not you, you know, you can get in touch, but we're we're not going to be a fit, and we'll tell you that.

Richard Hill [00:18:28]:
So would you say that's maybe the one thing that sort of is why you're so so so so successful in terms of you were just very clear on who you

Stephen Kenwright [00:18:37]:
would work with? Yeah. It was clear to the market. But, I mean, that's a two sided coin. We're really clear about who we would work with, but also we make it very clear to them that we're the we're a good re the best agency for the particular problem they've got, or we're not. Yeah. So it's it's targeting positioning the two sides of that coin, really. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:18:57]:
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Richard Hill [00:19:41]:
Obviously, a fundamental lever within building a successful agency. You know, those retainer values, you know, I think, obviously, you've been doing it since what what what year what year did you start? 2011. 2011. So, obviously, the retainers back in 2011, and then you think about the retainer values now. You know, I remember, you know, where it was, like, we were, like, £300,400 a month. You know? Like, literally, I mean, I've been I'm 16 years in. So Mhmm. So, obviously, you know, that's a huge lever making sure that, obviously, you know, you are you are, positioning the business at a certain level that, you know, a retainer is a is you know, we talk about a $100 a year, £1,000,000 a year, obviously, depending on who's listening.

Richard Hill [00:20:21]:
Mhmm. You know, those levers and values will vary, but, obviously, that's a key piece because, obviously, with, you know, x amount of retainers coming in, whether that's daily, monthly, you know, it gives you a lot of comfort, gives you, you know, the cash flow, the finances, the p and l, etcetera, all in in a better shape. And that enables you to for in terms of what you did in terms of the hiring, obviously, getting to a 110 people. Yeah. I think, I'm intrigued to know, you know, that's like a literally a it's a full on machine, isn't it? Literally, in two and a half years ish, 3 years. I know we took a change of the tire a little bit, but 3 years Mhmm. 3 years, a 150 odd weeks. That's 1 person every 10 days

Stephen Kenwright [00:21:00]:
Yes. Ish. Uh-huh. I mean, step me through that. I get you know, there's there's never one simple answer. There's usually a few simple answers. Again, simple doesn't mean easy, but

Richard Hill [00:21:12]:
it's a slightly different question then. So she you and Carrie Rose are having a chat on this. Let's do the agency thing. Mhmm. Go and win a a nice first contract. Are you 2, like, oh my god. We just won our 1st contract. And then you go from you 2 to 10 people.

Richard Hill [00:21:26]:
Yep. Step me through the, you know, 0

Stephen Kenwright [00:21:28]:
to 10, and then we'll do sort of 10 to 30. So there's a combination of when we started, we knew we'd be in Sheffield. We made a list of who do we know in Sheffield that we would like to work with. People like Ash Billinghey, Brandon Egley, people that we've known from Yeah. Social and events. As well. They're on the hit list at some point, and Luke Cope would be another good example of that. People we may have worked with may not have worked with, but we know we wanna work with them again.

Stephen Kenwright [00:21:51]:
So we're talking to them fairly early on, long before there is a an opening for them. Yeah. We're also advertising very clearly on social media. We need these specific roles. So some of our first hires, like Matt Jones and Jess Pease, just got in touch with us, people who followed us. You know, we we, didn't know them personally, but we got to know them very quickly because they knew us already, and we were able to just have that conversation in the other direction without having to talk about ourselves, which was nice. And a few other people we know that are just, like, they're on the hit list. They're not, you know, potentially super local, but they could make

Richard Hill [00:22:28]:
it, etcetera. To work with you. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:22:30]:
Yeah. So it it's, who who who would be the right people to bring in early on that match the kind of ambition and the kind of personality that we wanna go for because those first ten hires are really important for their setting the tone for the whole business. Yep. When some of those people come in, they recommend people. And and we had a a I'm not gonna say a really codified methodology, but wherever whenever we hired someone, we said, who do you think would be a good fit for us? And sometimes that was a you know, we were, one of the 2 bigger agencies in Sheffield at the time with J Wing. We had contractors and hires from J Wing, and we'd say, who have you been working with at J Wing that you think is great? And some names kept cropping up like Sally Rushton, who joined us as strategy director, was Richard just because lots of people said She's

Richard Hill [00:23:14]:
got said her name. Good. Right.

Stephen Kenwright [00:23:16]:
And then we find an excuse to talk as soon as we know that there might be something for for Sally to to hopefully do for us. Yeah. So it's a combination of, proactive, we need to know who's out there and who would be a good fit, but also reactive in the sense of, well, specifically kinda delivery focused roles, we need more PR execs. We need more PR managers. We need more SEO managers, etcetera. And it's very much just the, like, designing that role carefully and advertising it to our network.

Richard Hill [00:23:47]:
Were you thinking at that stage that some of these people are also future leaders in the business to to manage departments, or did that come a little bit further down the line? Or you're already already thinking it was gonna get to the size it did, and these people will be this person who's gonna come in and maybe manage the 3 or 4 accounts that you had at the, you know, 5, 6 people. But when we hit x, y, zed, they could then manage that. Did you sort of think about that as well? Are there potential managers in the business?

Stephen Kenwright [00:24:12]:
RISE maybe is a little unusual, but it's it's its method has always been we assume people are going to be future leaders until they prove otherwise.

Richard Hill [00:24:21]:
Yep.

Stephen Kenwright [00:24:21]:
So, you know, we will give people or we did give people, and they still do, I'm sure, give people opportunities, sink or swim very much, but, you know, they've got more and more responsibility. And when they show that they can do it, they get the title. They get Yeah. The money. And Yeah. You know, there's been some real kind of rapid progression and some long term progression through the business in that way. Some people, they they work how they don't want to do that. You know, we were off to hire people who didn't want to be Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:24:48]:
People managers, but didn't know that until they had the opportunity. So it was never a difficult conversation about you're just not up to this. It was a, you know, keep in touch, and they will say, do you know what? I'm not enjoying this bit. I'm, like, well, I'm not enjoying this bit. I'm like, well, great. Well, what what would you enjoy? And then we'll find a solution that because

Richard Hill [00:25:04]:
I think yeah. There's always different people, different different aspirations, different skills. And, obviously, if you're managing people and process, that's for different to maybe staring at AH rest for Ahrefs for 12 hours and have have been the really insanely good SEO, but I was managing people. Yeah. And and

Stephen Kenwright [00:25:21]:
you know what? It's not always it's not always easy, and we've not always done it right either. And I think when when that's the way you're gonna do in fact, any way you're gonna do things. If you're gonna be going to look for lifetime managers outside of the market and bring them in, then you're gonna be bringing people in above people, and there's a way to manage that. Likewise, if you're promoting people who don't have the experience, there's a way to manage that. And it's not an exact science, and it's not something that you can know in an interview whether that's gonna work or not. So you get it wrong all the time.

Richard Hill [00:25:53]:
So you've gone from 0 to 10, and I guess that carried you through to maybe 0 to 10 to 10 to 30. And then sort of, obviously, then, you know, you really had to speed up that process. To then hire I think we we we spoke before we hit record, like, 1 a week almost. Yeah. So what was the sort of infrastructure around that? You had you've got obviously an internal HR team at that point? No. No. No? It's just like

Stephen Kenwright [00:26:20]:
No. And I think that was one of my big learnings Yeah. That what HR really means because there's the legal requirements of HR, which are, let's not get sued. Yeah. And then there are the actual value adds that those HR professionals add to people, and I learned that too late. Right? I had the a good handle on how does policy work, what should we do, you know, in terms of how do we, you know, let someone go if it's not working, or how do we hire someone and these kind of things. So I managed HR in the business till we were 50 people, and it was a a disaster. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:26:56]:
Not because, you know, we were having all those people issues at the time, but because we weren't. Soon as we brought someone in, it was just the floodgates opened of all the things that people didn't want to bother me with. Because either I think I'm quite approachable, but regardless of that, I still I'm the owner of the business, and you don't want to bring things that make you look a certain way or or or whatever to the owner of the business. Maybe I'm not always in the office. You know, these kind of things. I'm I'm out talking to clients and that and so on and so forth. So as soon as there's the opportunity for someone to talk to an actual professional who is trained to do these things, you know, we we hired HR far too late, and then we didn't hire enough HR. So the value that those people add is is, so that's probably

Richard Hill [00:27:44]:
what the biggest challenge then, to sort of the obviously, getting to such a big Mav headcount. Obviously, imagine that HR, the people piece, that probably the one of the harder pieces. The people

Stephen Kenwright [00:27:55]:
thing was difficult for sure, for for lots lots of reasons. One being, I would say, the biggest being the environment that the world had found itself in. Yeah. You know, we had no concept of how to deal with lockdown. We had a younger audio a a younger staff. Right? So there were people primarily who were living with parents, who were in parents' houses, and and, you know, doing work in the bedroom, staying in the bedroom, waking up in the bedroom, you know, a a a small room for most of their careers at that point. Yeah. And, you know, that that is not really helpful for people's mental health at all.

Stephen Kenwright [00:28:36]:
Yeah. And then you've got a high growth business as well. Yeah. So, you know, that kind of thing was probably the biggest challenge, I think.

Richard Hill [00:28:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very tricky. I think that is always you know, I I personally find that through the years been the challenging piece. You know, the people piece. Obviously, it's, you're dealing with that the old case, a 100 a 100 and 10 individuals. And everybody's got something going on, whether that's, you know, career concerns, personal concerns.

Richard Hill [00:29:09]:
Yeah. You know, a little one of the you wanna do right by people, but it's obviously having things in place. Yeah. So maybe what were some of the things that so obviously you brought somebody in to manage, I think, is what you're saying.

Stephen Kenwright [00:29:19]:
Yes.

Richard Hill [00:29:20]:
But then did you bring in any any other anything else specifically to sort of help HR and the mental health side and that sort of obviously, work deep, working from home. Well, any sort of other things and tips you would give to our listeners?

Stephen Kenwright [00:29:32]:
We were always on the back foot with that. Yeah. And it was partially because we were growing so quickly GM. That one of the bigger challenges we had was management of people. So people would get into management roles who were not experienced managers. And one of the one of the good things about that is when you have you know, we're talking about those HR requirements. When you're talking about how to how to, support people, there's usually the legal way, and there's also the right way. And people are really worried about doing the right thing for people because that legally could get them into trouble.

Stephen Kenwright [00:30:12]:
You know, the kind of situation you might find yourself in, someone's lost a loved one, and your human instinct is to go, take as much time as you need. It doesn't matter. We'll get it sorted for you. And then there's also the the way that HR rule books say that you should deal with that stuff. Because we had inexperienced managers, we had a lot of empathy, which is good because no one really knew what they should and shouldn't be doing. And when you're trying to catch up with ACAS training and that kind of thing, it's it's it's helpful, and you should do it. But you need to do it a lot over and over again for these kind of things to to sink in. So that that kind of thing is is challenging.

Stephen Kenwright [00:30:50]:
Mhmm. Was also, I think, one of the big lessons for me is, like, don't just ask people, what do you want? Because everyone wants everything and doesn't use it when it arrives. It's much more useful for you to actually put in the legwork and find out what is what is working for anyone else.

Richard Hill [00:31:07]:
Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:31:08]:
But also what could we do, and then decide or give people an option, at least. Give them the opportunity to decide between x, y, and z. RISE had a young workforce, which meant that pensions, for example, were not high priority for people. We had pensions. But if we had an older workforce, we would put a lot more effort to that. Whereas because we had a younger workforce who had the kind of specific like, living situations, etcetera, we were much more focused on that end of of the spectrum, which makes it very difficult when you see agencies doing something really good over here, agencies doing something really good over here, and you wanna do both of those things. Yep. It's it's quite difficult to really understand what you can and can't afford and what really are table stakes and what's just the ridiculous perks in the agencies in the agency space compared to what people might get in manufacturing or something like that.

Stephen Kenwright [00:31:58]:
You know, it's it's there's a lot of things that you can do, and it's just finding that way you could have the most impact for the money you've got on the

Richard Hill [00:32:05]:
It's a tricky one, isn't it? Because when your your your time is whatever it may be, there's that human piece, but then, of course, there's the commercial side where, right, okay, we'll we'll sign up for x y zed times that by a 110 people. And then let's say if it's something that isn't gonna get used because it's just not really you know, it's maybe, well, that's great, but it's not getting used. Whereas, actually, like you say, people are more maybe need more help around, you know, cost of living problems, which is a very real you know, has been for quite some time, a very real challenge for a lot of people. So having those conversations with the team and understanding, you know, where where that is. So I'm gonna step back a little bit because I'm something I know you guys were very sort of prolific on, and I think that Ryerson still is, awards. Mhmm. You know, what would you say about awards? I think, you know, a lot of agency owners that are listening. You know, I think there's 2 camps with awards.

Richard Hill [00:33:02]:
A lot of people really push really hard for awards, a lot of agencies. You know, I do believe it can obviously get you seen and certain companies that are looking to work with agencies. Yeah. They maybe only look at certain people that have won awards or certain types of awards, but then there's other camps where, oh, you know, awards are this, that, and the other. You know, where was it you you put a big focus on awards, when you were there? You know, what what would you say about awards?

Stephen Kenwright [00:33:27]:
I think awards are a really positive thing for a few reasons. Firstly, and now, you know, we had multiple clients. Some of our favorite clients were ones that say, you know, we're coming to you because we want to win awards. You win awards. We want to win awards.

Richard Hill [00:33:43]:
Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:33:43]:
Not every client doesn't want to win awards, and the the suggestion that you see on social media fairly frequently is clients don't care. Yeah. Clients care. Not every client cares

Richard Hill [00:33:54]:
Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:33:54]:
And that's fine. You know? It's it's it's not something you should or shouldn't care about, but some people do. And therefore, if you've got the opportunity to help people put that on their CV and they want it on their CV, then that's a good thing. We had a a kind of 2 pronged award strategy as well. We had the big meaningful awards that we really cared about. Yeah. Rise's real purpose, the way that we articulated it, was to be the 1st SEO agency to win a lion at Cannes. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:34:24]:
And that in a singular sentence of what Rise was trying to do is, firstly, it's based entirely around an award. So you could say it's superficial. You could say it's meaningless or whatever. But for us, what that award represented is we are an SEO agency, and we've crossed over into the realms of real creativity, competing with and beating the best creative agencies of any space, anywhere in the world. And we're going to keep our SEO roots, and we're going to, you know, support that vision with where we've come from, and that's where we're going. So sounds superficial, but, you know, when things like we got shortlisted for a Cleo and I had the opportunity to go to Hollywood and walk a little red carpet and stuff like that, it's like, well, these are the Cleos. These are the things that we live for, and we've got to walk that walk. So there was the big meaningful awards and whether, you know, you you we didn't expect to win lots and lots of those, but that's what we're aiming for.

Stephen Kenwright [00:35:17]:
Yeah. But then we also had the industry awards, like the digital PR awards and the content awards and that kind of thing where our strategy was carpet bomb the place, win 10 in a night Yeah. Because I remember many, many times when I was growing up in the world of SEO and and digital marketing, When I went to the when I went to the UK search awards, which is one of the big meaningful ones for me, historically, it was verve search, verve search, verve search, verve search, and I remember verve search very, very well for that reason. Yeah. Heroscopics being an agency on the the other side of things, but I'm like, it's literally share of voice. Right? It's being it's giving the opportunity to talk to people and, you know, even if it is only agencies that care. These are people that might work for you one day Yeah. And they remember you because your name was there in the context of you being really good at something repeated over and over and over again.

Stephen Kenwright [00:36:14]:
So, you know, did did those specific awards win clients? Absolutely no idea. One of the bad things about awards, it's completely unattributable.

Richard Hill [00:36:22]:
Mhmm. You

Stephen Kenwright [00:36:23]:
know? I remember a few conversations where, some of our very long term clients said, we came to you because we saw you won this specific one. Great. Okay. We we have something there. But But at the same time, we'd have clients who would be on the phone with us in a qualifying situation where they say, when we say, how do you define us? And you're like, you were on the shortlist for the digital PR awards, we go, okay. Well, there was a lot of agencies on that shortlist.

Richard Hill [00:36:49]:
Yeah. There may be some quite big shortlist, aren't they?

Stephen Kenwright [00:36:51]:
That's clearly don't understand why we're different, so this might not be a fit because those other agencies might be cheaper or whatever. So it's like you just gotta ask that question. Mhmm. It's not going to be something that shows in Google Analytics, not that anything shows in Google Analytics now.

Richard Hill [00:37:06]:
Not at all. Yeah. No. I'm sold. I mean, it's, yeah. I think I like I like that idea of, share you know, the share of voice ultimately you're trying to get, whether that's for, you know, to to require a team and to to build the team. But, ultimately, you know, certain certain companies are you're popping up left, right, and center. Yes.

Richard Hill [00:37:26]:
It literally share

Stephen Kenwright [00:37:27]:
of voice is one of the biggest parts of marketing and agency because I mean, it's a general concept in marketing anyway. Right? Everyone has a share of voice. If you were to grow your brand, you have an excess share of voice. You've got more share of voice than anyone else. Yeah. In agency land, no one really says an awful lot very often. So you've got an opportunity there. Most agencies don't do a lot of talk.

Stephen Kenwright [00:37:48]:
I mean, they talk about themselves a lot, but not to anyone. Yeah. So, you know, being able to actually get into that conversation really frequently but social media democratizes that. Awards is an opportunity to do that. There's other things too.

Richard Hill [00:38:00]:
But Very rewarding for the team as well, isn't it? When they go to these events and they're representing, you know, the company. Mhmm. Might have been for a particular search or PR project that they worked on or led on, and then they have now worked on and delivered a piece of work that is now award winning. So for their progression and career and development, that's brilliant, isn't it?

Stephen Kenwright [00:38:19]:
Yeah. For sure.

Richard Hill [00:38:20]:
So 110 people. Mhmm. 7 mil a year. Mhmm. And then, obviously, the news broke in the industry that you were leaving Rise at 7. So I'm I'm really intrigued, you know, as a also a founder of an agency when you sort of made that decision, obviously, in yourself, you know, just yourself probably think, right. Okay. It's time for maybe something else.

Richard Hill [00:38:45]:
Or, you know, I'm interested to you to sort of step us through that moment where you thought, right. Okay. I want to do x or and then, obviously, then the journey from making maybe the start of the decision to actually leaving.

Stephen Kenwright [00:38:58]:
I'd be really interested to hear about that. Well, from my point of view, specific, the decision to leave was made before we started. Right? It was built to sell. Yep. And I think what you often don't realize is if you haven't done this before, what you're going to enjoy, what you're not going to enjoy, and really, you know, what what you do want to get out of it. If you've never specifically got anything out of it before, you've not done it. So me and my cofounder, Carrie, we originally talked about building the agency to sell to Brainlab's crowd, to, Assembly or to Jellyfish, really. You know, one of those massive performance agencies Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:39:38]:
That we thought would need the creative SEO approach that we had. So it was designed to grow as quickly as possible around that specific proposition with that in mind. And we got to where we were wanting to get to way faster than we thought we would get there. And when the time came to go to market effectively, we we had the conversation again, me and me and Carrie, and we we we didn't agree anymore. And I still wanted to sell the business. Carrie loved the business. She Yeah. Enjoyed running it.

Stephen Kenwright [00:40:12]:
She loved the people that she'd hired. You know? It was the lifestyle that she wanted to have. Mhmm. And at that point, it was either going to be, I would disappoint her by forcing her to do something she didn't wanna do, or I would be disappointed because I wouldn't get to do what I wanted to do. And so I think the grown up thing to do is to have a real conversation about how do we make the most of the situation and please the most people as as we can, really? And, you know, everyone has a different view of success. I found myself with the opportunity to pay my mortgage and spend 18 months at home with my little boy. I really recover, right, because, it was not an easy ride. I don't think anyone who grows a business that quickly is doing it because they love doing it unless they are masochists or just completely unaware of what's going on in their own business because it's absolute chaos all the time.

Stephen Kenwright [00:41:09]:
Yep. And if you think it's everything's sweet and rosy all the time, it you're not paying attention. So, you know, it it was an opportunity for me to just reset, really. Jump on. This is I was really privileged to have been able to effectively cash into where I got to at that point. Carrie had a view of what the agency still had left to do. Yeah. And so we we had a a conversation about it.

Stephen Kenwright [00:41:35]:
Again, you know, lots of these things are straightforward, but they're not easy conversations to have. So, so, yeah, we we talked about it. It took quite a while to get the business into the right place to actually do it, to get all the shareholders on on board with exactly what we were trying to do. Mhmm. So it was not easy at all, but it was the right thing for me. It was the right thing for Gary. It was the right

Richard Hill [00:41:58]:
thing for the business. I think that's the thing. It was a right thing for you, wasn't it? That's what you wanted to do. Obviously, the way you've explained it now is a really nice, sort of pro work. It's probably not every day, I'm sure. There's lots of, you know, discussions, shall we say, but, ultimately, you wanted to move on and not carry on building it to 100 and 100 of people.

Stephen Kenwright [00:42:17]:
Yeah. We had, one one thing that I think is really good advice for agency owners anyway is get a good accountant. And we had accountants, Cowgills, who came on board probably a year after we'd started. We we appointed them because they had this m and a history, and they knew how to sell a business. And they'd recently worked on a deal with Kagool, and I knew that a little bit at Kagool, so was able to get a bit of a reference, etcetera. But one of the first things they did with us was sit us down individually and said, right. How many houses do you want? What holidays do you wanna go on? How many kids are you gonna have? Are they gonna go to private school? You know, all of these kinda questions, and they they are doing what accountants do, creating a spreadsheet, and then they could turn it around and go, that's how much money you need to have everything you've ever wanted. Do you know what? For me, it was so much less than I thought it was going to be.

Stephen Kenwright [00:43:08]:
I'm like, if that's my lifestyle with that much money

Richard Hill [00:43:11]:
Yeah. This is end of the year. 20 years or whatever of grinding as hard as you have been or 5 years.

Stephen Kenwright [00:43:16]:
For sure. Yeah. So when you kind of set out in business thinking, I need to make a £100,000,000 business. Otherwise, we failed here. Yeah. That wasn't the that wasn't the realization that I got from that point, and it felt very achievable. So, you know, that was that was a the advisers generally are very hard to have when especially when you've not done the actual exit thing before.

Richard Hill [00:43:41]:
That's a great way to think of it, isn't it? Because I think you get so wrapped up and think, well, I I'll I'll get to this point. I'll get to this point. I'll get to this bit, but obviously, a lot can happen while you're getting to a certain point. Obviously, as you say, what do you actually need in reality to do, you know, when you've got 2 houses at your a house, see if, you know, all paid for minimal bills.

Stephen Kenwright [00:44:03]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:44:03]:
You know, a car or 2. You know, I you know, obviously, there's a bit more to it than that. But when you weigh it up, you don't need this, maybe, pie, this ridiculous figure that you might have just plucked from thin air to live just an insanely good lifestyle on x. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite surprising, I think, when you break that down. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:44:21]:
For sure. And, you know, social media doesn't help because you see the agency owners driving the fancy cars and doing the fancy holidays and all that kind of thing. That's a that's part of the Yeah. Image that does get curated. And so you you kind of have this idea when they're talking about this map, this much money, this figure, etcetera, you think, well, that's that should be you know, we're we're as good as that, so we could do that.

Richard Hill [00:44:42]:
Are you a car guy, though?

Stephen Kenwright [00:44:44]:
No. I'm not.

Richard Hill [00:44:44]:
No. No. No.

Stephen Kenwright [00:44:45]:
No. I I when we got our first dividends from RISE, I bought a Porsche. Yeah. Always wanted a Porsche. It was my bucket list. Sold it and got a Volvo last month. I've got a Volvo, and you know what? I'm really happy with it.

Richard Hill [00:44:59]:
Yeah. Have you got an electric?

Stephen Kenwright [00:45:01]:
Yeah. I've got a hybrid.

Richard Hill [00:45:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. So, obviously, you've been obviously off the coalface for a while. You know, what do you what's, you know, I always think, you know, people say to me, oh, what what are you gonna do with the business, Richard? You know? And I think, well, okay.

Richard Hill [00:45:18]:
You know, you you you paint some of the pictures like you have. Well, okay. X amount of money, this time, and then but then what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? You know, day in, what will my what will my days look like? Let alone what will I be doing 2 years after or 3 years after, but, like so we know what have we been up to? You know, what's the what's a a typical week bid, you know, post post sale, pay post acquisition, stroke management buyout? You know, what's sort of a a typical week been looking like for you?

Stephen Kenwright [00:45:44]:
It's it's been a little bit different Yeah. Right, because it's been 18 months. And, when I first when I first left the business, you know, we renovated the house. We'd not done anything. Part of, you know, lockdown and part of, being super busy with with running running the company was we just sort of not really done any of the things that we wanted to do with it. So I had 3 month 3 years worth of keeping, keeping my wife happy to catch up on really quickly, with with the with that kind of stuff. So initially that, I've done, Mark Ritson's mini MBAs Yeah. Which have been fantastic.

Stephen Kenwright [00:46:20]:
Yeah. I recommend those. Yeah. But most of all, I've been spending time with my little boy. You know, COVID was a game changer generally, I think, for parenting because, like I said, I would have been everywhere all the time and not seen him anywhere there as much. And even with Ryze, I was at home 3 days a week. And although I might be working after eating bed or whatever Yeah. I get to do bedtimes.

Stephen Kenwright [00:46:45]:
I get to do breakfast and all sorts of things that I wouldn't have got to do otherwise. But the last 18 months, I've taken him everywhere, and we've done all sorts of things. And I think that's the the best thing, really.

Richard Hill [00:46:56]:
Yeah. That's amazing time, isn't it? That that age as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, do you still keep in contact with the the the founder and the the team at Rise? Yes.

Stephen Kenwright [00:47:07]:
Me and Carrie talk, not all the time. You know? I think we're not the main characters in each other's lives anymore, but we still get on really well. And, with the rest of the Rise team, people have gone into different directions. Some people have left. Some people have have stayed. Yeah. And I keep in touch with quite a lot of them

Richard Hill [00:47:26]:
Yeah. Really.

Stephen Kenwright [00:47:27]:
Yeah. As best I can anyway. So generally, when I get a message from someone asking for help with something, I'll I'll give it. And, there's a few people that I I still see fairly frequently as well. Yeah. There's a guy I went to a conference in November in I was in.

Richard Hill [00:47:45]:
I was on a rooftop bar in Thailand in Chiang Mai, and I got a chat. It's an SEO conference, Chiang Mai SEO, and they got chatting to a guy. He knew you quite well. His name was Scapesred right now. So it's like, I was in the middle of the other side of the world. Yeah. He's from they worked in a few of the bigger agencies. I didn't brag it was brand of 3.

Richard Hill [00:48:03]:
I can't remember his name off the top of my head. I have to dig it out for you, and we were just we talked about you for about 2 minutes.

Stephen Kenwright [00:48:08]:
Rick May? He went to Chiang Mai, I think I saw.

Richard Hill [00:48:12]:
Could've been. He could've been. Yeah. He's doing, like, a 10, 15 minute chat amongst 200 people in a bar sort of thing, and then the accent, you know, there wasn't too many UK guy yeah, British guys there. And he's like, oh, you I said, oh, I'm Lincoln. He said, oh, I used to live in such and such, and I used to be branded free. Oh, branded free. Oh, did you do a chem ride? I was like, oh, well, that's all I do.

Richard Hill [00:48:30]:
It was like it was like yeah. Yeah. So, obviously, you've got a lot of, a lot of people that you've, worked with or worked at Rise, and, obviously, over the years, you keep in contact. And so that probably brings me on to my next question. You know, what's next for Stephen Kenwright?

Stephen Kenwright [00:48:48]:
I am not a 100% sure, but I know what I like doing and what I don't like doing.

Richard Hill [00:48:53]:
Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:48:53]:
I am an agency guy. I don't see myself going in house anytime soon again. Never say never, but it's not what I enjoy most. Yeah. And I've now been at home on my own for so long. I don't really want to do consulting Yeah. For a long term either. Yeah.

Stephen Kenwright [00:49:11]:
So it will be agency. And, really, I like building things. It's not, again, about making the most possible amount of money. It's about, that's the kind of business that I know how to build and run. Yeah. And, you know, each time I do it, I wanna make it a little bit better than last time or a little bit closer to my vision of what I want my my agency to be last time. I can't see myself founding another agency, though. The startup bit is not my favorite bit.

Stephen Kenwright [00:49:38]:
I like people. I like having people around, and I like change as in helping people to, you know, make change, not just change for the sake of change. But, actually, you know, having an impact is probably the better way to put it, I think. So Yeah. I think I'll probably join another agency somewhere

Richard Hill [00:49:57]:
in my house. Interesting. Well, when this airs, it might, it might be known, but, I I look forward to following the journey Oh, my seeing you, rise back out into into your new, new project. So, well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure to have you on. I'd like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book to recommend

Stephen Kenwright [00:50:19]:
to our listeners? I thought about this, and there are lots of books that I think I will recommend. And if you do as many episodes of this as you did of ecumen 1, then, you know, you you see the same books coming back up over and over again. So I thought I'll I'll recommend something completely different. Pep confidential, which is Pep Guardiola's time at Bayern Munich, the 1st year. Right? I am not a football fan, generally speaking. I have a passing interest in football. But in terms of how to run a business and specifically an agency, that is, like, one of the most enlightening books that I've read. Right? The way that he deals he's fantastic players who may not fit his playing style.

Stephen Kenwright [00:50:58]:
How does he deal with that? How does he motivate people? How does he how much research should he be doing before a meeting in a pitch or a football game? You know? The managing managing big personalities, I think it's

Richard Hill [00:51:11]:
Very relatable to

Stephen Kenwright [00:51:12]:
incredible how closely related that is compared to you read an agency book, and you're just like, oh, it's not really anything like my business.

Richard Hill [00:51:19]:
Yeah. No. That's that's sounds like a cork. I've got a little trip coming up, so I'll be, getting that ordered and, stick it in the, overnight bag. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, and I wish you all the best with the new venture. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. If you enjoy this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast.

Richard Hill [00:51:44]:
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.