V.O. 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. OK, so let us begin over to you, Chris.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Thanks voice over Guy and on the podcast today we’ve got Jay from Launch. How are you doing, Jaye?
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
It’s really good to be back, Chris.
Chris Simmance (Host)
It’s been an entire year of of seeing a lot of things happen on with launch from from, well, just from your LinkedIn updates. At least I’m I’m really excited to talk about this stuff today.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
It’s hard for me to hold down. A full time job and LinkedIn.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Ohh, you’ve got a guy for that. You’ve got someone for that.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
No, no, I do it all myself.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Brilliant. I mean, yeah. I know we’ve covered quite a lot of this in the podcast, but like you just said before we started that over the last 12 months, there’s been basically 12 awards. So that might give anyone who’s listening a flavour of how action-packed your year may well have been.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
There’s a lot of a lot of moving gifts of of of us awards, teens, definitely. And it’s been a phenomenal year and I feel very privileged and lucky to be able to say that.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah, it’s awesome. And so let’s let’s jump in for anyone who hadn’t listened to the original series and the first podcast that you were on. Naughty, naughty. You and, but if you haven’t listened, Jay, explain what launch are. Who you what? What? What you do as an agency.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Launch in the Happy Performance Agency. So we are paid media conversion optimization and data and measurement. And it’s funny, I was listening back to the podcasts in preparation for this and we used to describe ourselves as as a paid media agency for ambitious advertisers and. Yeah, we love ambitious advertisers, but it felt like a word that every agent thing was using and we really stripped back what was it that made launch? Launch and like I said on the previous episode, it is about our people, but it’s also about promoting a happy workplace and it is amazing. Into the ether you start kind of attracting. Yeah. You know, the right people, the right client and interesting books. It’s it’s. I’m. I’m going down a rabbit hole and I’m really enjoying it.
Chris Simmance (Host)
That’s awesome. That’s really cool. So. Give us a A. Bit of an update. What what’s been some major changes and developments in the agency in the last year and you know how have you adapted to those things as they’ve changed?
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
It’s been an interesting year. The we went into September with people saying ohh, you know it’s gonna be recession. It’s gonna. Be doom and gloom. And I that first couple. Of weeks of September I had. A bit of a. A worried mindset and I have to say it’s not come to fruition. Perhaps because we changed our mindset and we. Went into into the that’s. Our new financial year as. Well, from the beginning of. September and I just did the maths on it because I love a bit of metrics being paid media and we are 50% up year on year and that year was 50% up the year before and that year was 50% up the year before.
Chris Simmance (Host)
That nothing but. Consistent look at that.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
So it’s it’s been a phenomenal. Year again of growth, but very solid growth not you know taking on the right clients, taking on the right projects, taking on the right people and making sure that we stay true to to this happiness message that we feel so strongly about now.
Chris Simmance (Host)
So what? What? What’s come up in this last year in the agency that’s, is there anything that? That you’ve done significantly differently. That has put you that extra 50% up on the previous 50% or is it, is it a kind of natural evolution as you’ve gone?
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
There’s been a lot of conscious decision making, but I do believe that you start to build momentum when momentum passed a million revenue. So we’re on our way to 2.2, but perhaps 2.6 this year once you hit a million, you get a certain amount of momentum that helps carry you forward. But we went into this financial year giving everyone £1000 bonus for cost of or we don’t call it a bonus, a reward. It was to help with the cost of living. Celebrate the year. That we just had, we we had. To pull back a. Little bit from some of our learning and development budget because the team get 25% of their or 20% of their time that they’re sitting at a desk school or standing at a desk to invest in. Learning and development, but we had to make sure that we were smarter with what we did with the conferences that we went to because we needed to put as much budget as possible to salaries and that cost of living crisis has really impacted people and all of our costs have increased. We are really. Bad at putting that. Onto our feet. We need to get better at that because I need to be able to have a solid basis to be able to to to pay the team, you know. Yeah, what they need to be paid, but there is also still a recruitment challenge out there. That’s where the happiness stage helps us. We are different. We are much more transparent in the way. That we do things, but it that is a constant challenge and I wouldn’t say that running the agency. Has got any easier it’s. You know, I woke up at 3:00. O’clock this morning thinking. About one of the issues that I’ve. Got and I don’t think that that’s going to stop. Even so, I’ve got a great senior leadership team, a great senior management team. It’s it’s just the nature of agency.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah. I think when when you know that the buck stops with you full accountability at the top, regardless of how big you are, I I can’t. Imagine any even the largest of large businesses still has that you still have that 3:00 AM wake up thinking ohh what about? Or have I done or whatever cause it does trickle down eventually somewhere in a in the in the wrong way later on so.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
I would say also from the last year that that is something I’ve become more aware of in the agency owners in particular. But most founder founders of companies don’t give themselves enough time for themselves or for sinking.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Spain. Yeah, well. The the the the problem is I think when you start a business and it’s yours and you’re the the, the, the you know the key reins at the beginning and you’ve got the one that you’re the one that’s doing the delivery and everything like that. Not only is it hard to give that away and delegate things out and trust people, but you never quite lose the. And I think I know best how to do this kind of stuff and then that trickles through into I should probably have a break now and let the people I’ve hired the and trust to do this to do the work well and and I think we. We struggle with that because we’ve been too long in the, in the trenches, as it were, doing it for ourselves and.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Yeah, I would, I. Would I would agree, and there are books out there that have helped me in the last six months or so. Arianna Huffington’s thrive, where she talks about the fact that you really need to have an extra metric of measuring such. Yes, because a lot of founders are high achievers. The the metrics of success within business tend to be power and money, but she talks about how developing this third metric, which is along that happiness, but it’s wonder it exposing yourself to new experiences and and I. Went on a retreat. Couple of weeks ago with the light Hearted Leaders Group who were absolutely awesome and I had no idea what I was expecting. It was my husband’s birthday, actually. So I I. I kind of was using it as. A. Let’s go away. Let’s go away. We’ll just walk in the countryside. And there’ll be some other people. There and it was. Turned forwarded meeting 12 strangers and you just you need to put yourself in situations that you wouldn’t normally go into just because you can provoke new ideas and give you.
Chris Simmance (Host)
So the last years obviously. There’s plenty. It sounds like that’s happened and changed in the agency. What do you think happened in the in the industry as a whole and and is there anything that you? Kind of avoided because of it or engaged in particular.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
So we recorded last year, I think just before the announcement was made about Google Analytics being sunsetted as we know it and Google, Google Analytics for GA4 as it’s now known and it’s going to be launched and be the the only way of using Google Analytics. On the 1st of July that year. And that has been very disruptive. Umm, I think disruption can cause lots of opportunity. So yeah, you think of that word and you automatically think negative things. But actually I think it’s a real opportunity and we’ve had to build out our data department because measurement is an absolutely crucial part of paid media. And all marketing and. But measurement and responsible measurement, not just last click, just going for brand, really understanding what is driving incremental revenue, what is driving customer lifetime value. And GTA4 is an opportunity for for clients to be able to really double down on their data and understand their. Business data in in a much better way, so that has required a lot of investment from us. It’s required us to approach things differently all at the same time as moving to a cookieless world.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah, I I. Well, look, I’m. I’m so glad I’m not in in the trenches so much with this anymore. But I I found with the GA 4 stuff like you say, the disruption is almost purposeful because there’s not been a huge amount of forthcoming information about best practises and things like that. Beyond the main documentation. Which then leaves agencies and businesses which want to do well with these things to spend a lot of time and invest a lot of money in, in actually developing the right outputs and the right inputs and things like that. And I think what I’ve noticed, I’ve even just, I think just this morning, I saw people talking about something. To do with GA four and how it’s gonna be a mess in July. And it’s well. It probably will be a mess in July if you’ve not spent the last almost year learning how to. Use it and and and that’s where the disruption is good for. You’d like to do you guys.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Yeah, it has. It has developed though a lot in the last in the last nine months. You know there are new things changing all the time with it and we have to be comfortable with that change. I was probably one of the many posts that you’ve seen on GTA4 today. On LinkedIn, we’ve just launched a guide to help people, but ultimately people. When something is free, which Google Analytics was free, when something’s free, people don’t value it enough. And yes, they have not been valuing Google Analytics. They throw it up on their site. They’re not looking at the data properly, I’ve. I don’t think. I’ve ever seen a Google Analytics account that has been 100% correctly configured or measuring all of the right conversions, so this is an opportunity and it is. It does require investment and you can’t get away from that, but it should have been invested in a long time ago and it’s a real opportunity and. What we will, what we are seeing is that in a world where you know we’re meant to be in a. In a challenging economic climate, if you are a business that invests in your marketing, you will continue to grow and thrive because you’ll stand out from your competition who are retracting and being frightened and have a negative mindset.
Chris Simmance (Host)
So I great. And Speaking of like growth and thriving and in the last year or so and how have you sort of personally or well personally and professionally developed, what’s kind of the core thing that you personally have focused?
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
I have put. A lot of energy in understanding myself better, which then influences then the leadership of of the business. Yeah, I did ET training. I highly recommend it. There’s all kinds of of versions out there. There’s. Positive intelligence. I used thief from Jago. Another agency. B Corp agency. And I had one to one sessions where I did an assessment on my EQ. Which is emotional intelligence. For those who. Don’t know about it. I understood that there are kind of four areas of emotional intelligence and there’s no such thing as you are either intelligent or not. You score along a scale. And you might be highly empathetic in certain areas, which then could cause perhaps as the reverse a lack of strategic. Strategic understanding. If you care too much about what people think about you, you might not make the right decisions in your business. So by understanding how you score and understanding coping mechanisms because no, no human being is perfect, every human being struggles with something. And if we aren’t struggling with something. We find something to struggle with. It’s.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah, yeah.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Just the human condition. And being able to understand that in a human powered business like we are and we’ve got human powered paid media which uses automation and AI and machine learning to drive it forward.
Thank you.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
But if you don’t have the human element at the start to understand the people’s business needs. Yeah. So this idea that. By understanding humans more and this idea around happiness, that’s where I really felt strongly that was my why? And people are my why and they’re. Challenging them, though.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Oh yeah, that was the the the. Challenge that you say the the struggle the. Struggle is is is something which is quite satisfying when. You see the outcome. You know the obvious metrics of staff retention and things like that are really easy to measure, but the speed at which you can hire is is a is a good sign as well and. Things like that, but. And really, seeing people with a smile on their. Face in the. Office is, is is nice as well. You you know you you learn you’re learning what you learn and you just explained and and you can see the outcome relatively quickly or the leading leading measure towards that outcome at least.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
And at one point, I felt. Almost tired. I was. I was like, Oh my gosh. Have I got to now learn a whole new load of stuff to understand organisational psychology and yeah, and motivations of people. And they may realise hold on a minute. This is super interesting stuff. Why? Why are you looking at this negatively? This is an opportunity. To learn and grow, and you see all these people who retire and then go and do a degree, it’s because we by by learning more, we expand our minds, we expand our consciousness. And I I bloody love it. I bloody love reading. All of these. Books. OK, quite often I don’t get past chapter 3, but. Normally they put everything in the first three chapters anyway, or blinkist is a really great way to. Speed things up.
Chris Simmance (Host)
I’ve come to the I’ve come to the conclusion that almost every book you could distil it down to about 30,000 words, which is about 2 1/2 hours of reading and. All the rest of that stuff in those books is is filler. So Yep, you’re right and. Chapter 3 is. Usually when they’ve made the main point and the rest of it is just concepts, concept builders and things like that. But then, yeah, you you, you’re right. And I think self-awareness is something which is super hard to learn unless unless you either consciously decide to or something happens that kind of. Pushes you into into doing that and we we we offer like a similar kind of service where we’ll do like an imagenetix. Testing for either you and your team so you can kind of work out where you’re the you’re best using your energy should we say so if you’re analytical. I might be analytical, but I use a lot more energy being analytical than you use of being analytical, but I also enjoy being creative and I use a lot less energy being creative than I do being analytical and it’s really helps when you’re kind of trying to piece together the the decision making that happens in a in a business. You know, I know that if I gave you 1000 rows spreadsheet with loads and loads of pieces of data it might take you 10 minutes. You might like doing it, but it uses more sort of mental energy than it would do if you gave it to someone and it took them two days because realistically they’re you. They’re pushing a bit harder to to. You’re pushing a bit harder to get done. It’s really, really cool. And then when you.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
That sounds epic.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah. So when you see how like. You fare in silo. You go. Boy. I kind of got that. That makes sense, but then when you see how the team as a whole kind of slot in together, it just makes. It kind of. Draw draws like this really incredible picture. Of that’s why that person, after a week of ex, is really stressed out or crabby or that’s why that person really loves the ****** jobs. Or I thought they were ****** job, but they’re not and it’s really, really. Clever as well since.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
I love it. Yeah.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Having that kind of awareness makes it really cool, and then when you. Bringing new members of staff, you do a similar kind of exercise where you can work out how they slot in and it and the one thing I noticed with that is that it’s. It is great when you’re adding people to the team later. So you’re doing your do they fit. The culture do they fit the values? Are they able to do the role and then you go if they do come in, will they fit in like mentally you know?
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Yeah. Which makes sense, yeah, because we’ve got multiple. Pods and then. You you’d have to. Decide which pod they go into. Ohh yeah, I’m I’m. I’m buying that. Chris, send me an e-mail afterwards. I I tell you.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yes, that. Well, I’ve ever done. I’ve done on the podcast, you guys, if you ever want any selling tips, there’s a training. Course for that too.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
I tell you what, though. What’s interesting? Is starting with the individual understanding themselves better. So rather than this old traditional model where the line manager you know needs to know you to micromanage you to direct you. If we all are more self aware and then we have an organisational structure that allows more of a coaching and and mentoring. Finds that then it enables the individual. To be able to to. Have the language to communicate how it is that they’re, you know, approaching things and. You know, I I really struggle. With there’s this thing being more Yoda and less superhero. And I bloody. Love being a superhero? I. Love. You know the idea.
Yeah, well, you’re.
Chris Simmance (Host)
You’re a founder. You want to be the superhero. You wanna be the you know the the Saviour. But I get it well.
And with and with your.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
With your graphics that go with it you. Know the pal. It’s that superhero. You can have an impact. I’ll come in. I’ll rescue the situation, but that does not promote a healthy workplace. It doesn’t promote healthy colleague relationships. It’s important that you empower people and be more Yoda and mentor them to bring their best selves to work. I struggle with it. I luckily have an operations director who’s much better. Net so and he he’s our people person. So that’s really good and that’s understand. I understand myself that I have a more of a lean towards superheroes. So I therefore take a gap and and put Mike in.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah, that’s that’s exactly what you should be doing. You know, if you, you ticked. All of the right. Leadership boxes out. I know me. I know them. I know where and. Put it all together. So if we’re, if we plan a recording for 12 months time and I’m asking you now, what’s your core focus for the next 12 years? What? What’s that gonna be? What? What are you? What are you the what’s launch aiming for for 12 years into the flute? Future future.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
12 years. Dear God, I don’t know if I could ever. Look that far in advance. 12 months. We’re going to. Our plants. So what we’re seeing within the industry is that. Agencies now need to do more thinking, do thinking and allow the automation in the AI to to do some of the doing. The button pushing we’re moving much more towards that way, which means investing more in the team to keep pushing them to to climb up that knowledge ladder. To widen their experiences to understanding marketing more broadly from a structural point of view, we’re really focusing on and and this has actually come from Google themselves. I’m part of the Google exec circle so I get to be in a room with 30 of the top independent agencies in the UK who all in paid media. Yeah. And we understand the importance of that measurement piece that we’ve already spoken about, but also the creativity that you now need to bring to make the brand stand out from the rest of the crowd, that noisy, noisy place of our hands and and the search results. How can you actually connect with customers? I’m watching interesting agents. These blossoms that are specialising in empathy, for example, and connecting with your customer and understanding your customer. So I want launch to keep evolving, to keep being able to serve our customers well, to be able to be a breeding ground for talent, quite literally breeding ground. We have a very good parental leave.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Policy. There you go. There’s a plug there just in case you want to. Work at lunch. Everybody, not only. You happy? But you can have babies too.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
And I think on the last podcast I said to you about this glass ceiling, this this self-imposed glass ceiling, which I continue every day, I I picture myself a little bit like Iceman, Hoff where he has to cut through the the ice to get back into the water. And every day that ice just slowly, you know covers over again. Well if you look upwards. And every day I’ve gotta tap through that glass ceiling and. Have bigger and. Bigger expectations for what we can achieve. Because I started in my bedroom, you know, with my first client. Yeah, 10 1/2 years ago now. And now we will be around about 2.5 million, around about 27 people. We you know. It’s just amazing and I want to be able to just keep pushing that forward so that the team can develop within the company and you know, we can’t hold on to everyone forever. And I really would like to. Try, but they can keep bringing their best selves to work and we. Can bring new talent on.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Well, that’s wonderful. So hopefully next year, season three, we’ll have a conversation and it will be just as positive as this one’s been.
Speaker
And I might have the.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
The new title of Chief Happiness Officer. Because they lived into that.
Chris Simmance (Host)
Yeah. Excited. You’ve exited the, the the day-to-day and you come in and just make people smile. Yeah. Brilliant. So that’ll be.
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Great job and I’ll put that on my vision board that. I still not actually pinned to the wall yet.
Chris Simmance (Host)
We’ve all got one of them and I had some hours. It’s always distort depending on your mood of the time. Thank you so much for coming on again, Jay. It’s been great to talk to you.
Jaye Cowle (Guest)
Also really good to see you, Chris.
Chris Simmance (Host)
And on the next podcast, we’ll be talking to another agency leader for a second time to find out what’s happened in the last year for then.