Voice Over Guy:

Hello, and thanks for coming along to …And We Have an Office Dog, the Digital Agency podcast where we talk to agency owner directors and learn more about what makes them tick, from the things that make them similar to the things they’d rather have known sooner, where they’ve had success and where they’ve learned some hard lessons. All will be revealed with your host Chris Simmance, the Agency Coach. And he’ll be talking to a different awesome agency person in each episode, asking them four questions and seeing where the conversation takes us over the next 25 minutes. Okay, so let us begin. Over to you, Chris.

Chris Simmance:
Thanks voiceover guy and on the podcast today we’ve got John. Hello John, how are you doing?

John:
Very well, thanks Chris. Thank you for having me.

Chris Simmance:
No problem at all. John, you are the dark horse from Dark Horse. How are you doing in your very dark office? I know no one can see this. It’s an audio only podcast. It is very hot today. It’s probably quite hot there.

John:
on brand. I am, our colours are black and red and I can say that the clothes are red but my face feels very red. It is absolutely sweltering here so

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, well,

John:
but I’m doing okay and I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Chris Simmance:
thank you for putting the time in for this. I’ve been looking forward to this episode. You’ve been running Dark Horse for how many years now?

John:
About three and a half.

Chris Simmance:
and how long you’ve been in the industry.

John:
Oh, for give or take. I am not what we would probably call an industry veteran, but that’s part of our genesis, that’s part of the reason why we exist.

Chris Simmance:
I’m really excited. Okay, so before we go into the typical podcast stuff, so tell us a bit about you, tell us a bit about the agency, how did it come to be?

John:
Sure. Well, in effect, I’ve got two companies and in the previous company, which is still going, I call it the previous company, it doesn’t get as much of my attention these days, it was through growing that, that I first had exposure to digital marketing and to cut a long period of time relatively short. I felt I was subject to a lot of mediocre practices within working with these award-winning, you know, fast surf

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

John:
laden picnic tables. agencies, they look like an agency, they sound like an agency and you know what Chris, I think that they are brilliant agencies at heart. If I was John Lewis, I’m sure I’d get access to some fantastic people and would have gone through a slightly different process, but I wasn’t, I’m not and things didn’t quite work out that I wanted to. So I spent thousands of pounds of digital agencies and that is why Dark Horse exists and I set it up because I felt there’s a far better way of treating what I would call the little guy. within the marketplace. So all those guys that were in tough marketplaces up against big competition with deep pockets. I didn’t feel they were getting the kind of love that they deserve. So I had no intention of going into digital. I’ve never done a day’s rather than paid to do a day’s PPC SEO social, which is our core services in my life. I’m not like a frustrated head of PPC or what have you that started their agency. I’m a frustrated customer who can empathize. and understand what it takes to select an agency and understand the fears and all that

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

John:
go with it. And effectively Dark Horse is to right the wrongs of that process to take all the good bits that we received and there were some and keep those and cut out all the rubbish and replace them with good. It’s a common sense approach. So not a digital expert and a frustrated customer who started their own, be the change would be probably a nice tagline for that.

Chris Simmance:
Well, I think what agencies do very well is the technical, the expertise led stuff. But the biggest failing I often find is that they forget that a service is different to a product and it needs to be handled in a different way. And that then usually leads to, you know, account management at an nth degree, which is why you see the ping pong tables and the AstroTurf. Cause people think, ah, I don’t know how to make them feel like this is that we’re really good and results aren’t enough. Yeah, so Dark Horse has been running for three years now. What do you think has been one of the kind of biggest successes that you’ve seen?

John:
I think that the reaction to our messaging and positioning is strong and that comes from our empathy of what I described. So it’s very, we’re full of fantastic people. Of course we are from a logical point of view and a technical point of view, you know, to compete in the markets that we do, you know, you have to be fantastic. You

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

John:
have to have specialists all over the

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
pitch to use a metaphor, we can’t hire footballers, high strikers and all that. I think where we do well is having those conversations with the MDs and heads of marketing of Ecoms companies and go behind the metrics, the KPIs, the trend lines, so to relate to them, so to understand the impact of good or bad digital marketing for them to know that myself, starting an agency and the people at work at Dark Horse, know what it’s like to go home of an evening. and have rows because you’re going through anxieties of stress and all these different things. There’s a lot of account managers and PPC managers and PPC execs and all that jazz who have no concept of what it’s like running a business and feeling that incredible pressure, the

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

John:
sword of

Chris Simmance:
there’s

John:
Amakles

Chris Simmance:
a big burden

John:
hanging

Chris Simmance:
on me. Yeah.

John:
over to you. I’ve ignored my kids at times, not deliberately,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

John:
of course,

Chris Simmance:
I mean,

John:
but

Chris Simmance:
cool. Thanks.

John:
they want to play with daddy as he comes home and I’m rushing the kids to bed and all these different things. This is what good or bad digital marketing can bring, is the impact. It can allow you to have fantastic things, but it’s a responsibility beyond trend lines. And I think a lot of digital agencies forget that. Clients are monthly reports, or they are partners, or other such wanky buzzwords. But no, when they’re more than that, their arguments, their holidays, their ability to make sandcastles or not, to create memories. And I think this is where, you know, just… I’m going to say quote unquote relative success that we’ve had.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

John:
I’m sure our agency is doing better than dark horse out there and growing faster, but I’m sure there’s lots that aren’t. Um, this is what resonates. This is where our success lies.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah. And, and, you know, once just on that last point, I think anyone listening to this now, just remember that success is what your success is and not what you think it, everyone else thinks it is. Um, there’s a typical trope of, you know, you go to a conference and you say that you run an agency and the second question, uh, after what you do is how many people are you? Um, as if the assumption that more people means you’re better. Um, naturally you’re not going to go in with watching net profit, but are you happy? doing what you’re doing is the end goal that you’re aiming for. What is that insight? Are the things you’re doing now, aligning with that end goal? And that might well be boutique agency of three staff and a decent turnover and a high net profit that allows you to have three holidays a year. It might be high growth, high stress, but early easy exit. But they’re all different. And I think that’s why quite a lot of agencies end up being the same because they’ve behave like this is just how it gets done. So your focus is, not to be flippant, but it’s sandcastles or no castles kind of thing. It’s quite a nice way to deem the success of the business. It’s focused on what you want out of life. And hopefully that then follows through into the right way with the team. If you go back in time though, right to the very beginning of previous business turn your attention into the newly developed dark horse and out of the side street there comes an actual dark horse and it turns out that it’s you from the future. And you have one piece of advice to give yourself. What advice would you give your younger, brand new agency starting self?

John:
Brilliant question. There’s a, there’s a, there’s an overall one piece advice. There’s a couple of small things that I’d say

Chris Simmance:
You’re

John:
to,

Chris Simmance:
going.

John:
if it was myself talking to myself quickly. First of all, get off LinkedIn. It’s, it’s, it will kill your brain cells. Just stop, just stop that right now. I would say blow the whistle on Manchester City as soon as you can. Just, just do what, do whatever you can now, cause that’s coming. Outside of, of that, I would say trust your gut. There’s so much, not noise, there’s so much good advice or lots of advice which can be bewildering at times to do this, to do that, to create frameworks, methodologies, roadmaps, stand out, all these different types of things. And you will doubt yourself without question. Sometimes

Chris Simmance:
Peace.

John:
you’ll think, am I a good person by telling the truth in all these different things? Because you’re gonna get shunned by. other people within the industry and things like that, because you don’t necessarily, you know, you want to deal with the issues of digital marketing, almost like anti-establishment, if you like. But just know that you’re gonna work with some amazing people. You’re probably gonna create, if you do stick by Sticky Guns, you’re gonna create something that you should be proud of, that’s special, and just don’t give in. Whatever you do, don’t give in. Don’t necessarily focus on standing out. Just stand up for what you believe in. Dark Horse is a kind of an embodification of what we believe in and how we were treated and to be better and to be more. You don’t have to have a USP. You don’t have to have all singing, all dancing specialization that you’re the PPC agency for pig farmers in Peterborough. And like all the books say that you should do, just stand up for yourself.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
If I had 40 seconds, however long that’s what I’d say to my… Yungvist Alpha.

Chris Simmance:
I reckon you’re right. I mean, again, this is an individual exercise, an agency as a leader. There’s certainly proven financial benefits to being the PPC agency for pig farmers in Peterborough, but

John:
Yes.

Chris Simmance:
that’s only because it depends on, typical digital marketing term depends, depends entirely on whether or not it’s aligned with where you want to go. And if it’s not aligned with where you want to go. then it’s not the right thing to do. Nishing isn’t always the right thing to do just because there’s a book that says it. That

John:
I think it’s

Chris Simmance:
being…

John:
mathematically,

Chris Simmance:
Right?

John:
Chris, sorry Chris, I think it’s mathematically the right thing to do from a logical point of view. And half of Dark Horse, well, a good chunk of Dark Horse is rather about the emotional side of things as opposed to the logical side of things. And I’m totally with you about niching down. But I also think, do you know what’s harder than that is not to sell, to be everything to everyone. That doesn’t make a lot of sense at all. But you can. actually aim, instead of, you know, being a PPC manager for pig farmers, be better for more people. Now that is really hard. Now that takes a lot of effort and resource and things like that. And you know what? That wouldn’t sell as many books because that’s not an easier framework to follow.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
And if that loads of books and loads of advice and, you know, and if you were to listen to, you know, Stephen Barlet on LinkedIn and stuff like that, there’s some very, they sell things that I believe that are kind of… mathematically easy to follow because if it was tough then that book isn’t going to sell. So

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

John:
yeah.

Chris Simmance:
I’m with you on that one. The purposeful aspect of things makes a big difference though, because if your positioning of your business is based on the purpose that you have for that business, then indirectly that is your niching, because only the people that fit that and fit that feel of what you’re after and what you’re doing is your own version of that. It’s just not. got a label for an industry or something along those lines. Is there something that, you know, since you started, I’m sure there’s been, as you mentioned, good success. Is there something that happened at some point during these three years where you’ve gone, ah, shit, we screwed up here, let’s not do that again. Apart

John:
Get loads.

Chris Simmance:
from

John:
Right,

Chris Simmance:
LinkedIn.

John:
weekly. You know, which kind of, when you speak to a lot of other agency owners, it’s all good news. You know, the perception is often frequently different

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
from the truth. You hear about the success stories of going from zero to a hundred employees in 24 months, but what you don’t hear, you know, you hear from behind the scenes, is that some people lay off 50 staff or what have you, that doesn’t seek out. So, you know, have we made mistakes? Absolutely. I mean, you know, we, we entered some, um, it wasn’t an award. We don’t, we don’t enter awards, but we, there’s a kind of top 50 agencies thing that, um, it’s just a lot of financial, um, certification recently. We got that, we got that, we got a quicker than I thought. I didn’t think we were, we were going to get on that. Um, and then we, we didn’t make it this year because I didn’t enter, um, frankly, because I split the companies up in two. So I basically

Chris Simmance:
Awesome.

John:
half that half the turnover and things like that. So, you know, there’s, there’s

Chris Simmance:
On paper

John:
things

Chris Simmance:
it looks

John:
I look

Chris Simmance:
terrible,

John:
back on

Chris Simmance:
but

John:
and I

Chris Simmance:
in

John:
think,

Chris Simmance:
reality it’s different.

John:
yeah, it’s like, I didn’t really, you know, maybe I should have considered a little bit more than that people will, um, get the wrong idea, but I’ve kissed a lot of, um, I would say in, this is going to make me sound a bit like the old fossil I am. So let’s just stick to the truth. Integrity that we’re aiming for. I’ve, I’ve stuck to, sorry. I’ve kissed a lot of entitled frogs over, uh, over the three and a half years. They, they candidate market as. um really change things for the better in many ways but made things a lot a lot more difficult

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
um that has been one of the things i regret is again i talked about gut instinct before is not making decisions quickly enough in if you think something’s not right if you think a person’s not right if you think a behavior is not right what have you just action it quickly so far i’ve similarly what happened. A leopard changed their spots. You can you can literally know little makes subtle changes here but people are who they are and if they’re not on board um then get you know move them

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
move them on. I’ve wasted too much time with um in the wrong areas.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, and the sad thing is, yeah, the sad thing is quite a lot of agency owners do a similar thing. There is no real blueprint beyond the fancy book words ones. And that’s a bit like a baby book because again, baby comes out, the book exists, but the baby isn’t like what’s in the book. So it doesn’t really matter. You’ve got to find some of these things out yourself. you know, soft plug for the OMG center. If you want to find these things out quicker, give us a shout. We’re here to accelerate agencies. That’s the whole purpose for our existence. I slogged through two agencies, one of which almost killed me. And as I was slogging through these agencies, I learned a hell of a lot of lessons by a lot of metaphorical punches in the face. And having exited those, all I want to do is help. So if you’re in a position anywhere, anyone listening, and you wanna accelerate through some of these things, but still wanna learn as you go, rather than be told what to do, shout. John, someone’s starting an agency and they like the cut of your jib. They haven’t found you on LinkedIn for whatever reason, and they definitely didn’t find you in the grandstands at Manchester City. What piece of advice would they ask you, what piece of advice, sorry, would you give them if they asked you?

John:
ignore most of the advice that you get

Chris Simmance:
Hahaha

John:
but since you’ve asked me you

Chris Simmance:
Yeah

John:
know and it’s not unsolicited ignore unsolicited advice probably I’ll change it to that but since you’ve asked don’t buy into this kind of fake it to you make it garbage like stick to your principles and integrity for me that kind of noise and tropes and trite stuff that you would see on social media from people with an agenda of selling books or selling whatever it may be, you know, the people that made it rich in the gold rush or the people that sold spades, not the people, you know, plugging, you know, in the midday sun. Fake it till you make it for me, fail fast, all these different things. It’s borderline fraud if you actually go down that. I know I’ve listened to lots of podcasts where you’ve got, boastful agency owners talking about how they, the weirded focus on sales right at the start, which I get that and understand, you know, you’ve got to be commercially minded, but we weren’t bothered about processes. We weren’t bothered about service. We weren’t bothered about products. And I’m sitting there listening and thinking, have you put, this is where empathy comes in and what I referred to as being a customer.

Chris Simmance:
Hmm

John:
If I heard an agency owner talk like that, and I’ve been a customer of that agency, I’m thinking, I’m considering a legal case against you. What you’re basically saying

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

John:
is

Chris Simmance:
man.

John:
you knew you were shit. and you still charge me a massive whack and blah, with no kind of appreciation of what I wanted to do. So forget the fake it till you make it stuff, actually, you know, learn and do good work first and foremost. Secondly, I suppose that the more pertinent and probably better advice maybe thinking about it is ask yourself why you are creating an agency. If you are creating an agency to make money, which is a perfectly valid reason, because a lot of people don’t like to talk about money, I can tell you and you’ll know Chris that nearly every agency owner is not necessarily obsessed with money, but it’s a big thing to them. It’s why

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
we, why, why we’re doing this. We’re not doing it for fun. Um, or what have you. Um,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, yeah.

John:
if you, if it’s about money, then I would say even know there is a, um, strong, you know, all about standing out and all these different things. Being a paint by numbers agency is a very safe option. talking about culture, community, putting out loads of social posts about, you know, your latest sports day or Christmas party and things like that. Unbelievably, these actually work. These do generate exposure. Go out and hire a personal branding expert, ASAP,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

John:
and then

Chris Simmance:
yeah.

John:
just start putting out all the bollocks because you will get to a certain level if you just wanna make money and you’re not bothered about anything else. If you actually have a purpose, then… which is, you know, different to making money, then get thick skin and get, potentially get investment because this is bloody hard and good

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

John:
people cost a lot of money. And there is no shortcuts in that sense. If you, if you’ve got a purpose, you can have a really bumpy road ahead of you. So you are going to, as you think, as you said, Chris, you’re absolutely right. You’re going to get punched in the stomach weekly. So, you know, metaphorically speaking, get some, get some apps, close your ears and get prepared for a slog.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, I like to say it’s like a roller coaster, whether you’re good at it or not. Um, it’s champagne on the way up and punches in the face on the way down. And you can only really try and focus on the champagne. Um, the, the thing, the thing with a lot of this is. It starts with why it starts with purpose. It should do absolutely. And unfortunately, what, what happens is, uh, the vast majority of agency leaders are. fantastically good people and genuinely very clever and good at the thing that they deliver. But they start an agency either by being jaded by their previous agency that they worked at and I can do it better than them. So they go away and emulate and add, or they were great freelancers or consultants and took on enough work to go, I should hire someone. And then it kind of accidentally evolves into something. And… Very rarely is it until you get to between three and five people and you start seeing the numbers change and the stress levels change, do you go, why am I doing this? And then when you ask that question, you’ve got to really dig deep because then it starts being like, I’ve got to unpick a lot of things I’ve decided are the right things and redo things, which isn’t a bad thing because, you know, ultimately you’ve got to do something that you enjoy if you can because otherwise you may as well go and get an employee number, a big business somewhere else.

John:
very appealing at times, yes.

Chris Simmance:
Hmm. Um, John, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It’s been wonderful talking to you.

John:
Thank you very much, a pleasure.

Chris Simmance:
And, uh, in our next episode, we’ll be speaking with another agency leader to hear their story and the lessons they learned along the way. Thanks very much for listening.