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:
Thanks, voiceover guy. Very happy today. I’ve got Lulu on the call from Bin… Oh my god, I’ve done it wrong again. Bin knew me.

Lulu:
Benoomi, Benoomi

Chris Simmance:
I knew me.

Lulu:
or,

Chris Simmance:
Right,

Lulu:
or Binyumi, Binumi.

Chris Simmance:
so let’s clear this up once and for all. For everyone who doesn’t know who you are, tell them who you are and where the name came from. For those who do know you and have been saying it wrong all these years, you can correct them once and for all.

Lulu:
Okay. Well we don’t really mind because obviously America says it’s slightly differently to England and we are, you know, global company, but I say Bin You Me because the name came from storyboards and video is, is saved in Bin. So it’s a Bin for you and me, and it’s about the collaboration and that’s the whole raise on death row if you like.

Chris Simmance:
and what is your role in the organisation, Lulu?

Lulu:
So I’m Benumi’s chief growth officer. So it’s very hard to say quickly. And I’m looking at currently validating the UK market.

Chris Simmance:
Wonderful. And so what is it the company does and why should agencies love what you do?

Lulu:
Well, we have fundamentally built an all in one video platform for seamless collaboration, efficient distribution and scalable distribution, sorry, efficient distribution and scalable distribution. So it’s the democratization of video across all comms.

Chris Simmance:
I had a look at the platform a couple of weeks ago when we had a call, didn’t I? And it was,

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
and within like five minutes was like, I’ve got to have a bit more of a play with this. It’s pretty cool. And it’s, it’s almost like you’re editing a PowerPoint presentation, but it actually comes out as a pretty decent bloody video.

Lulu:
Ha ha

Chris Simmance:
You can, you can chop it up into different sizes and stuff. And my head was worrying how many, how many of these I can create in a day and how much value I can create out of them and things like that. And it’s a, it’s incredible. And I think as a, a tool for, as an offering for agencies, if you, if you’re trying to get into something that would require like a lot of time doing video, this is a really good way to start at the very least. But I think you’d very quickly realize that, you know, in a nice way, all the lovely video editors out there, this isn’t to steal your

Lulu:
No,

Chris Simmance:
thunder

Lulu:
absolutely

Chris Simmance:
or your job.

Lulu:
not.

Chris Simmance:
This has a different purpose and it is very obvious once you have a play with it. So I recommend having a chat to Lulu when you listen to this episode. So just give me a bit of a background. Where did the company come from? How did it, why is it what it is?

Lulu:
Why is it what it is? It’s a really good question because we actually, we started 10 years ago. And when the owner had been working for National Geographic, he’d traveled the world and captured all the last voices. He’s made a 17, 20 odd albums of all, and then National Geographic said, go back video the whole lot. And he was in the schools showing, showing the National Geographic documentaries he’d filmed. And they had, all the kids were, were much more enraptured in what could they do with the video opposed to just watching it?

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Lulu:
And that was the insight, the moment, if you like, of, um, I need to enable his thoughts where I need to enable all kids to be video editors when they grew up as part of the course in the same

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
way you and I now use, you know,

Chris Simmance:
Good

Lulu:
PowerPoint,

Chris Simmance:
job.

Lulu:
it’s the

Chris Simmance:
Thanks.

Lulu:
same thing. Um, but it’s absolutely on steroids. So, so he then started building the platform and immediately released it to schools. He’s got six curriculums on it. Teachers just simply choose year group. And then all the content comes in, all the rights clear content, and then the kids are spending 99% building a video rather than looking for content.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
Um, and that control, when I met him six years ago, I said, hang on a minute, add agent, well, agencies full stop. If they had that control between and the ability to collaborate between themselves within, and also their clients, they could be doing internal comms. They could be doing training. They could be doing so much. with this content because an agency creates this great creative. How could we repurpose it a hundred million times?

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Lulu:
You know, the platform provides that and that’s what it’s about. So going back to your point about the creativity, we hopefully have gone creative plus speed plus ease, cost optimization

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
and brought it together. We’re not taking, we respect, we come from video,

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
you know, and is a, the most strategic. And you know, he’s a, he’s a video editor, right? He’s a videographer, I should say.

Chris Simmance:
Okay. Um, you see Okay.

Lulu:
He’s not about that. He’s actually about enabling that amazing work to be repurposed

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Lulu:
over and over in different ways.

Chris Simmance:
That’s awesome. So agencies come in all different shapes and sizes, but what would you say is one of the things you love most about working with agencies?

Lulu:
I have worked with agencies most of my life actually. I love them and adore them. When I first started I was intimidated by their creativity completely because I’m a business person. So it frightened me that I could talk to them and they could visualise everything I was saying and it looked beautiful. So it took me a long while to get used to the fact that I was just on the seesaw but just in a very different place to them. And so what frightens me most about them is the fact that whilst they’re so diverse and able to, um, I guess, change and modify and bring to life and proposition, their clients, how difficult and stubborn they can be. If you try and say, look, I can give you a whole new revenue stream. You just need to change your organizational structure and they look at you like you’re nuts.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, most of the agencies, the majority, the rump of agencies are kind of sole owner founder, they’re sort of

Lulu:
Yep.

Chris Simmance:
between five, maybe 15 people. They’re the ones that like… if they make a right strategic choice at the right time, things can be a rocket ship.

Lulu:
Absolutely.

Chris Simmance:
Often they’ve got fires here and there, they need help with support, and it’s a very lonely place at the top of something when

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
essentially it’s a people business.

Lulu:
Hmm.

Chris Simmance:
It’s really hard to know like… what the right decision is at any point in time. The parameters are constantly changing, everything, technology is changing. This last year, all I’ve seen is AI this, AI that, and the other. It’s gonna steal our jobs, SEO is dead, digital marketing doesn’t exist anymore, robots this. If you’re, with your experience kind of from a business perspective, but looking at the agency lens, if you’re seeing all these things going on around people, like what… What is it that you kind of see that you think, they should just like do this

Lulu:
do

Chris Simmance:
one

Lulu:
it.

Chris Simmance:
thing always?

Lulu:
Well, I mean, look, I’ve been in agencies growing them either across the globe or growing them within, you know, the UK. And, and I think a person in my position of business does it does see things more before anybody else does. And I get that. And I understand how frustrating I can be because I want to move much faster. But I what I’m really wanting, the eureka moment for me is I speak to an agency now and I just go, look, this is a new revenue stream for sure. It will change the way you work, absolutely. But what you’ve got to understand is the clients are insisting on this type of hyper-targeting. And it’s not just, you know, above the line, what you’re currently doing. It’s not just creating amazing, you know, comms against. the culture, if you like, or the vision of the company, you know, it’s not one or two videos a year. We’re talking about hundreds of videos a day,

Chris Simmance:
Mm-hmm.

Lulu:
right? So, so just think about the relationship you’ve got with your clients

Chris Simmance:
And it’s…

Lulu:
and it might be in one department and it might be marketing, but imagine if you utilize that relationship and went to their HR and went to their finance and they went across all the comp, all the departments, because with our platform, you can do that. You know, you can stay the brand controller, but you can produce

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Lulu:
much more work and amplify it.

Chris Simmance:
So in your long experience with agencies across the world, different shapes and sizes and things like that, I’m sure you’ve seen a good amount of them come and go. And some of them, they go with a bang. Some of them go quietly and there’s a little whimper. And what in your experience distinguishes the best from the rest, from your perspective?

Lulu:
Oh, wow. That’s quite an easy distinction actually.

Chris Simmance:
This is the plan.

Lulu:
It’s the founders or the board that have a very clear growth strategy and they stick to it for a set number. It’s almost like, I’m gonna put my neck out there but say three years. A strategy that changes after 12 months is not a well-fed

Chris Simmance:
Yep.

Lulu:
strategy. And you’ve kind of probably spent a lot of money and you’re on a hiding to nothing if that’s your pattern. Look at your patterns. look over your shoulder and look at your patterns, look over your shoulder, look at your clients, look over your shoulder and look at the losses. And that will determine your future. But it’s those guys that, I say guys, I mean

Chris Simmance:
people.

Lulu:
girls and guys, obviously people, thank you. Stick to your gut is my, the people that actually say, right, we’re gonna do this regardless of all those

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
voices talking at you, they’re the guys that really win because you spend a lot of time gathering that momentum. It’s like a wave breaking,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Lulu:
isn’t it? In the ocean, it spends miles and miles of momentum. When it breaks, it breaks hard. And as long as you’re ready for that, you will fly and you will go from your 15 to your 45 quite quickly. There’s a few

Chris Simmance:
Mm-hmm.

Lulu:
sweet spots for agencies and it’s interesting to see the jumps that they make. But yeah, the 15 sweet spot, people stay there a long time because it’s quite scary to get to the next level, but it’s… It’s so doable.

Chris Simmance:
One of the kind of core focuses with the OMG center is to accelerate agencies growth. And I think that the three year plan at the very least, absolutely agree with you. Any further ahead, you’re not kind of able to account for too much change, the parameters change around you. But coming in,

Lulu:
Yeah, it’s the market,

Chris Simmance:
yeah, the

Lulu:
isn’t

Chris Simmance:
market

Lulu:
it?

Chris Simmance:
changes, technology changes, people change. There’s a pandemic in

Lulu:
Mm.

Chris Simmance:
the middle and all sorts of things will happen. But I say this, it sounds really stupid when I say it. we would never have sailed across the seas and discovered the world and explored new places if we didn’t know where we were aiming for. And

Lulu:
Yeah,

Chris Simmance:
half the time,

Lulu:
the

Chris Simmance:
exactly

Lulu:
moon.

Chris Simmance:
half the time, you know, the ship will need to move or there’ll be a storm and you’d have to navigate around it, but you’re still aiming for one thing. That means that you can, you

Lulu:
Yep.

Chris Simmance:
know, you can enjoy the good times and the bad times feel a little bit less painful if you’ve got a strategy.

Lulu:
Hmm.

Chris Simmance:
And…

Lulu:
Absolutely. Well, my analogy, if you don’t mind

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
me saying it, the most simple analogy that I can, I share with people because I come from sports is the game of football.

Chris Simmance:
Mm.

Lulu:
And it’s, the rules are set. You all agree in your company, what are the

Chris Simmance:
Hmm.

Lulu:
rules? The game changes daily, but if you stick to those rules, you put your vision up on the board, you make it very apparent, your values, and you’re repetitious. the rules stay the same. Everybody can play a very different game every single time, but you will stay within that rule set. You will achieve excellence because nobody’s confused. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a designer or a business person or anywhere in between, you will know exactly what you’re doing. So when you leave the office, you’re still doing it. And that amplifies everything and accelerates everything. And everybody knows what you’re about everywhere. You get the right people coming to you. The universe is feeding you. Do you know what I mean? Because everybody knows how to play the game football. And, you know, creative agencies, it’s never the same game. We still watch it every day, right? Don’t be worried. You’re still.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah, but you’re playing with the same rules, which makes perfect sense. I totally get it. And

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
so with agencies, they often, you know, they’ll go through the motions, they’ll read the blog, or read the book, and they’ll tick the boxes. They’ll have some kind of elevator pitch and a statement on the website that more or less says, we do everything for everyone, which then is not very focused at all. Some of the best agencies I’ve ever spoken to just say, we do this one thing for these people, and we’re good at it. And

Lulu:
Yeah, it’s

Chris Simmance:
then they

Lulu:
brilliant.

Chris Simmance:
stick to that. And that means that all of their team can learn specific things. All of their team can go to events and speak with one kind of common thread. And like when you’re not in the room, that’s what people are saying about you, because that’s

Lulu:
Exactly.

Chris Simmance:
all they can… connect the dots between. And the overlayer that with the rules of the game, should we say, that means that everyone kind of agrees to play.

Lulu:
Exactly.

Chris Simmance:
It’s a recipe for success, should we say.

Lulu:
Absolutely.

Chris Simmance:
So let’s say for a minute that Binyumi has ditched the video stuff. realize that video is dead for whatever stupid reason, but you’ve put all your R&D budget into, and it’s taken years, you put all your R&D budget into creating a magic wand. But

Lulu:
Yep.

Chris Simmance:
you’re not very good at the actual product build because the wand can only be used once. What one thing would you use the wand on to change in a digital agency?

Lulu:
Wow. I think I would use, I would use it to hit a really big pause button

Chris Simmance:
Ha ha!

Lulu:
and, and get all of them, the entire industry bar networks, and, and transport them through the TARDIS to the do lectures. Because I just, I mean, I haven’t been myself, but I’ve heard the stories and I’ve seen the videos of how when people step outside of their surroundings and change the environment entirely and allow you to speak to each other freely, you create the most amazing realizations within your own head because they’re just brilliant agencies. They’re just, I can’t, I can’t, and they don’t know how sometimes how brilliant they are. And I think if they did that, it would just send so many levels. I mean, it’s giving me goosebumps just thinking about it, to be honest with you.

Chris Simmance:
The funny thing is you say they don’t know how good they are and I think there’s an element of a bit of weird kind of Instagram style type thing here where all these agencies benchmark themselves against vanity metrics that some of them make up in order to sound great. You know, we just want to… 50 million pound client, but they don’t mention the 59 million pound losses that they made. And

Lulu:
I’m gonna go.

Chris Simmance:
so you’re looking at these agencies, they’re working their asses off and they’re really good at the

Lulu:
Yeah,

Chris Simmance:
thing

Lulu:
cool

Chris Simmance:
that

Lulu:
sale.

Chris Simmance:
they do. And they’re thinking, oh, not very good because they didn’t make a 50 million pound client this year. Well, actually you’re doing a really good job because your net profit is

Lulu:
Mm.

Chris Simmance:
great and everyone in your business is happy and all of your clients are serviced well and all of your clients like you. Yes, you’re a 15 person agency doing four million quid a year. You’re 15

Lulu:
Mm.

Chris Simmance:
person agency doing 4 million quid a year. They’re making a loss, but they’re shouting about the good things. Don’t,

Lulu:
Mm, mm,

Chris Simmance:
don’t,

Lulu:
absolutely.

Chris Simmance:
don’t pigeonhole yourself to that thing,

Lulu:
Yeah,

Chris Simmance:
to that same degree.

Lulu:
yeah,

Chris Simmance:
And, and, you know,

Lulu:
yeah.

Chris Simmance:
if I, if, if I could, uh, use a wand as well, I think in this instance, I probably would, would sit in those lectures as well and go listen up guys.

Lulu:
Well, the other thing that you’ve made me just think about this come that’s flown to the top is it’s something that came to me years and years and years ago. If you imagine all the hard work that these creative agencies have done, they only actually publish about 10% of the content they’ve ever created. They have bank loads of content. If only there was a platform somewhere where they could upload all this content and reuse it and repurpose it. I mean, can you imagine?

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Lulu:
Obviously I’m referring to Benumi, but the point is they’re sitting on gold, they’re sitting on value that they haven’t even looked at because without a platform to allow them to play, why would they think about it? I mean, you know,

Chris Simmance:
Yeah. A good friend of mine is a video editor. Why is a filmmaker because he does all of the aspects, but he he’s got terabytes upon terabytes of

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
incredible stuff. Even the raw stuff is incredible. And

Lulu:
Mm.

Chris Simmance:
I remember asking him a couple of years ago now. It’s like out of all of those terabytes and terabytes and terabytes, how much of that has been publicly viewed? And he was like, Oh, maybe like two terabytes out of the 300 or something ridiculous like that. And it’s like you say, you can do some within contractual obligations because of IP. You

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
can do an awful lot with the other stuff. And he started doing like little micro cuts of bits and bobs now because it’s something good to do. But it’s also great to show. all the other stuff that’s kind of left on the cutting room floor as they’d say. But

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
there is so much more you can get out of agency and I’m not just talking about repurposing video, I’m talking about like repurposing everything that you can possibly do.

Lulu:
Absolutely.

Chris Simmance:
If you write an article, turn that article into a video, turn that video into segments of a video, transcribe each of those

Lulu:
Exactly.

Chris Simmance:
videos because you’re not reading from a script and then you’ve got great an article. a video, a transcribe video, that can go on several platforms, that’s just a one, one thousand word article guys. You just leverage the brains you’ve got.

Lulu:
Exactly. I mean, you understand the word repurposing, like inside out when we met, I remember going, you get it. And we’d spoken five minutes.

Chris Simmance:
Yeah.

Lulu:
You know, some people get it, just some people don’t. And I think this is our barrier at the

Chris Simmance:
Yeah,

Lulu:
moment.

Chris Simmance:
so one thing I’ve noticed and it’s a bit like that thing where you say, I haven’t seen X thing for a while and you see 50 of them, but I’ve started noticing people

Lulu:
Yeah.

Chris Simmance:
talking about it in the context of what repurposing actually means. And

Lulu:
Mm.

Chris Simmance:
only a few, but in the last few weeks it’s been, there’s been a, it’s too early to say a sea change, but noticeably,

Lulu:
a swell.

Chris Simmance:
yes, yeah, there’s a few bubbles.

Lulu:
Mm-hmm

Chris Simmance:
And people are starting to sort of think, oh, I’m putting all this effort into this one thing. I’ve got to get something else out of it, surely. And platforms like yours. There’s a fantastic platform called repurpose.io and that is where you put the one thing in that you can create, the video that you’d create on your platform for example, it will then, you can snip it as many different ways and different styles as you like, but once it goes onto one platform, it automatically goes onto another and automatically onto another and all you have to do is set up the workflow. You do it once in five hours setting it up properly, and you’ve got years worth of like automated content flow, which is suitable for all of those platforms. It’s incredible.

Lulu:
Yeah, brilliant,

Chris Simmance:
But anyway,

Lulu:
brilliant.

Chris Simmance:
we digress. Agencies are great, you’re

Lulu:
We do.

Chris Simmance:
great.

Lulu:
Agencies

Chris Simmance:
Thank

Lulu:
are

Chris Simmance:
you

Lulu:
great.

Chris Simmance:
so much for coming on the podcast, Lulu. It’s been wonderful chatting to you.

Lulu:
It’s been great to meet you again. Thank

Chris Simmance:
speak

Lulu:
you, Chris.

Chris Simmance:
to you soon.

Lulu:
Thank you for your time.

Chris Simmance:
Thanks very much

Lulu:
Take

Chris Simmance:
agency

Lulu:
care.

Chris Simmance:
people.