Expert of the Month - Garry Hamilton - Equator
In this GYDA Talks, Robert interviews Garry Hamilton. Garry is the Chief Growth Officer at the digital transformation agency, Equator. Over the last twenty years he and his two partners, have built the agency into a UK top 5 independent agency (Econsultancy 2019) with 180 experts in Glasgow and London. Equator currently serves as the digital transformation partner for FTSE 100 companies and world-renowned brands including AXA, Virgin Active, Santander, SSE, Phoenix Life and more.
Robert and Garry discuss:
Digital Transformation
Increase Prices
Created the role of Trusted Advisor
Be a partner and not a supplier
The risk/reward model
Growth 'secrets'
You need to make yourself redundant
We all exit via death, going bust or selling our share of the business
You need to become a board with actions and accountability
Consequences of underperforming in the board room
COVID-19 and its impact
Brexit sorted then COVID-19....
You need to be brave; you need to be seen
Lead gen is low cost now
How to stay entrepreneurial?
Felt like an oil tanker at 100 staff and chopped the business into tribes
What next? The industry will need to get into digital business transformation
Even more consolidation
Too big to be small, to small to be big offer opportunities...
Gary’s advice for agency leaders
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:51
And hello and welcome to the GYDA Talks about growth digital agencies. And I'm absolutely delighted today to have Garry Hamilton from Equator from Scotland. Hello, Garry.
Garry Hamilton 01:03
Hello, Robert, how are you?
Robert Craven 01:04
Absolutely fine. So Equator it's got a really, really excellent reputation. But could you just describe what Garry Hamilton does and how big you are? Just to give us a sense of who we're talking to.
Garry Hamilton 01:17
Absolutely, Garry Hamilton is one of the three owners of an Equator digital transformation agency, top five independent about 180 staff now 50 million pound turnover are working across five core sectors finance, travel, health care, energy, and have been doing this, as my face probably says for about 20 years.
Robert Craven 01:41
20 years. So you call yourself digital transformation rather than marketing agencies?
Garry Hamilton 01:49
Yeah, absolutely. 14 years, we're a full service agency, however, there was another split of a pack and where you sort of positioned yourself, we're more leaning towards transformational tech and by a mean that what I mean by that is not websites we've gone and analysing pain points, and putting in digital solutions to solve them. Yes, we offer the marketing as well. But it tends to come after the realisation of the benefits.
Robert Craven 02:18
That's brilliant, because that's almost like you're ahead of the game, because all the platforms are saying think about digital transformation. Think about being a software supplier, think about being a bigger piece, not just an agency that does performance marketing. And not many people made that jump hadn't made that jump, everyone's kind of playing with making that jump.
Garry Hamilton 02:47
I definitely think there's a lot of people playing with making the jump. And it's you've got to really understand where you are and your clients value chain, you're either formulating that strategy and executing it, whether that's creating a solution or treating it with other marketing, or you're a production element, and you're gonna be kind of honest about that, and just changing a few ones on the website doesn't change the mindset of an organisation.
Robert Craven 03:16
I think that's what's kind of gone on is what for many agencies, it's a bit like corporate speak, you know, the way that you know, the large blue chips, and the banks start having a purpose, or they start having, and I think lots of agencies have put digital transformation, because they know they should be helping their clients with digital transformation. And but actually, they're the bread and butter of marketing agencies or digital marketing agencies. And that's the conundrum that they kind of have.
Garry Hamilton 03:51
Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's understood. If you say to yourself, you're honest and take a step back and say we still chase RFPs. When the thinking has been done. You're not really intersecting at the value. Value crossroads with your client. I genuinely believe that.
Robert Craven 04:13
Absolutely. I'm a great fan of a guy called David Meister. David is actually an accountant, originally an accountant. He became a consultant to the big consulting houses essentially. And David was a wonderful man. It's like, this is how I do work because when I arrived, he's my fee. These are the flights I go with. And His thing was about a trusted advisor that if you're a supplier, in other words, people phoned you up and say we've got 10,000 pounds worth of Facebook ads, can you do them? You got no traction and you're competing with Bangalore, if you're an advisor or in some senses or consultant, then they're saying we've got 10,000 pounds a month. Which platform Do you think we should use? You go up one more level to trusted advisor and they say, we're thinking of 120,000 pound budget this year, but we're not quite sure which products we should be pushing and in what order and what we should be doing it, then you're in the boardroom, then you're it's no longer price by the hour.
Garry Hamilton 04:48
And you've got to move away from that model and have to move away from that model. If you are placed by the hour, particularly in today's climate, you're on a rapid trajectory downwards. And if you are bumped in by escalating variable costs, and labour, you're in a challenging position right now. You have to be sitting up there talking about right. How are we going to reduce the cost to serve? It's not clear website is reduced the cost is at. How are we going to increase the profit margin? What markets are and what products are we actually going to invest in and know why and consult and advise as opposed to as you said, I've got 10,000 pounds with you know, you're not part of that inner circle where you should be.
Robert Craven 06:19
The one if woulda shoulda, but on that one for me it feels quite business Schooley. And I'm not a great fan of business schools. But it feels quite like, Okay, We need to be assessing the environment for our clients, understanding markets, industries, understanding which levers. And I actually think that's right. I think that much as I'm disparaging about much of what business schools don't do. That sense of grown up thinking, as opposed to let's just throw some money at it. Oh, the client wants Facebook, that'll do. If you've got a hammer, all problems are going to be nails, you know, and I think the challenge for agencies is how on earth do they do with their limited toolkit? How do they recognise it? Oh, no, someone's asked for a chisel again, they've asked for a chisel again, maybe we shouldn't be selling chisel work yet. But we need to get up to speed and have more confidence, grow our toolkit.
Garry Hamilton 07:38
And as sometimes to continue the analogy, get rid of some of the tools and really become a specialist and a few channels or a few areas and really differentiate yourself. If you're the only everybody's out there, we will maximise ROI, but we can do it cheaper. You know what is new, what differentiates you in front of someone as opposed to having the confidence to say, and we've done this, even an agency review. Actually, if you've got right now they're actually doing a good job. However, I think we can add value over here or when a brief comes in. That's not for us. This is what you should talk to us about. It's a confidence and a maturity thing. And it's difficult, particularly when you have a growing agency is difficult in the current climate where you may not know what the next grief is coming from or you've not got that established pipeline of the two years you've been working on that pipeline has just changed overnight, in the last few months. That's where I think you need to be as an agency right now confident in your offering and confident in what you're who you're talking to.
Robert Craven 08:55
But people listening if someone was, I don't know, a 25 person agency or a 15 person agency, they're probably about to hit the stop button because they're going oh, it's alright for Gary Hamilton. It's all right for him. He's got deep pockets, he's got years and years of trading behind him. He's got a black book to die for. He's got the connections, he's in with the blue chip, he gets his big, big contracts with big people with big prices. He doesn't understand what it's like because we're only charging 70-80 pound an hour and there's only 15 of us and one client represents 30% of our turnover and we think they're about to disappear. And you know my wife is pregnant with twins. And How on earth am I meant to play the big man? How on earth am I meant to be saying no to people who asked me to work with them? How on earth does he honestly expect me to put my prices up? Is that what Gary Hamilton is saying?
Garry Hamilton 09:53
Garry Hamilton is saying put your prices up. Genuinely saying that he's also seen if one of your clients is to 80% of your turnover. Yeah, you've probably got a couple of strategies right now. Why can I say this because I've been there as a three man band for 20 years, it started with us and had one big client and was very, very lucky that they stuck with us. For nearly seven years, however, you have to stabilise your ship right now and keep paying the bills as ever. However, a VAT client is starting to put even further downward pressure on your 70-80 pounds an hour, you need to be bold enough to say, no, actually, things have changed as they have for you, Robert, I need to put that up 10% to cover everything I've been walking into here dress up, which now and they say actually, I know you're used to being 20 quid a haircut me it's no 25. Actually look at the screens and the PPE, it's actually justifiable, if you can justify it and have the confidence to do it. But then have another strategy that you are going to go and grow. You cannot be dependent on one big client for going forward as input we learned at sectoral level in 2008. And 2008, we were probably two main verticals, one of them being in finance, and probably over indexed in three types of products and finance, one of them being Mons. Oh, yeah. And when it was good, it was very, very good. You know, I was fantastic. We were changing in terms of even going into the market. And you know, in terms of when forget about that. You learn from yesterday, Lana from yesterday says, you know, despite crazy risk modelling, we will not just saying we can do your paid search from you because it was performance you can do, we will tie ourselves into your success. Part of that thinking was, I want you to change your call centre operation, while everybody went in from 9 to 5, we started extending it to 10 o'clock at night, because look at the data. That's what your electrician is having that confidence even when that went. So we've learned that when viewed over indexed in 2008, we had to be aggressive, everybody else was contracted to a degree. We said we need to go on the offensive and still be seen as stable, still be seen as having an opinion on what's happening there. And then at the end of 2008, we've moved into new sectors came out with double digit growth over a rolling 18 month period. And being in one of the worst sectors you could possibly be caught.
Robert Craven 12:52
Is that because people along with us provide value for money and all the others? And our culture is what makes us different from the rest and all the other bland statements that people say is that because partnership is another one of those things that people say but they actually they don't actually understand that partnership isn't will work together? Yes, actually, we're going to break up a little backside figuring out how you as a client can do better is that because people have got the wrong definition of partnership. I think partnerships just being nice to each other as opposed to being more aggressive, I suppose is the word I'd use.
Garry Hamilton 13:36
It's about partnership has so many facets, it has got many facets, and it does in terms of on a basic level, look at it as a legal definition. You know, actually join yourself with like minded people and have an accountability, a legal accountability to drive an organisation forward. If you are going into partnership with a client and they genuinely look at paid such as performance, say for instance, making the recommendations, splitting the campaign, doing all the good stuff that you normally do, but then actually challenge them to change what they're doing and accept it. You're a partnership. I would question it when we will all be there regardless of your 25, 50, 100, 150, 200 size agency. How confident are you that the risk reward model? This is what I love and I hate that. Absolutely. Are you that confident? Yes. Well, yes. Apart from the modelling character. Yes. And will you look at a risk reward model on elements of the performance? Yes. And it depends on the product and the competitiveness and all those dynamics. Okay. If the client then says okay, so what is the reward model? Well, the reward model is you get paid. That's not a reward or reward model. Should you get paid more because you're actually spending your money to get them sales? I would question whether that's a partnership model that applies a model, and probably a supply model quite quickly as dollars evolve to move into someone else who comes along and says we have shared values, we will do a virtual world. And hence, this cycle repeats itself. And what do you do? You have to go out with iMessage again.
Robert Craven 15:19
And it's your argument that there's more than enough plants out there, that if a client ends up pushing you down towards being a supplier, that you can move on and find someone else where you can add the significant value is that kind of what your absolute loss of is?
Garry Hamilton 15:39
Absolutely go back and clients have had this relationship with other agents before and you'll probably see depends how you watch the news and how you're watching your competitive set, and you know how people are moving on where they move to, you'll see that chump will be probably 70% of it, I'll probably be alone a year 18 months and the clients move in there forever moving via they fail in that mindset of market trader almost regardless of where they are, and you know, from the footsie 100, right down to an SME, they are always going to be in that cycle.
Robert Craven 16:19
I also was selling to a new head of marketing, marketing manager, marketing director, you want to put their stamp on the business? And I mean, we get it all the time. We'd like to change things. Aren't the results great? The results are fantastic, but we'd like to call it something different. But why would you want to do larger? And we'd like to do it differently. But isn't it working? Could it work better? Don't think it could, so how changing it and calling it whatever your name is new project? How does that make things better?
Garry Hamilton 16:52
How does that make an apple still an apple column that a banana doesn't make a banana? It's an apple, you know. And yes, flight is particularly when there's a vertical move in a carrier. So someone jumping from senior marketing manager to a director. Yeah, they've got to go in, and they've saw what they've done before. And I am going to make, you know, they've done a patch of the company used the agency that went right now to analyse the stats on the promise that they're going to move in, and you're the voice for us. Now, don't get me wrong, and 50% of those channels, there's such a situation, they do take you along, if they can, and there's not a procurement process, or some sort of corporate governance preventing it. But they've also made promises that they are going to deliver incremental growth and probably just cost as well, that you are going on that journey with them regardless.
Robert Craven 17:55
I totally get that at a corporate level. But if you're selling into, I'm thinking to people listening today, if you're selling, you know, to a 50, 100, 150 person business where the sales and marketing director probably gonna be the sales and marketing director in two years time because they're probably shareholders, then you have the opportunity of it being different. Because if you're selling into less than corporates, if that makes sense, then you're selling more theoretically more into a family and that you got, I guess what I'm saying is that small agencies often sell small pieces of work to smaller businesses, larger agencies tend to sell into larger businesses. It's not always so as the agency goes up the food chain from 25 to 50, to 75 to 100 people it starts going from being a small business to a boutique to a player to a you know, to a specialist to an expert, and you're competing with no one you know, because of you were going to the networking meeting and picking up the work. Now you're competing head on with in your case, I guess you're competing head on with the centre and Dentsu and Ernst and Young as well as independence. The voice goes down again on the procurement process kicks in and everything takes longer. It's slow. I mean, is that a fair thing to say that the reason I say that is I mean I remember the work. The work we did we want a 6 million pound contract with Barclays. It took the best part of two and a half or three years from start to finish. We run one a big contract with Google it probably to three or four years from start to finish, because larger organisations have annual budgeting have quarterly board meetings. And I guess what I'm trying to say is a lot of mid-small and medium sized agencies think, wow, we've got to win business with the big boys. But I'm not so sure it's such a clever thing to do. Because it's a different skill set.
Garry Hamilton 20:27
It's a different skill set. And there's definitely different learnings from an owner perspective. As you go through the gears from 0 to 25, 25 to 75, break the 100 barrier, and 100 upwards, which I can talk from my perspective, there's a maturity that comes with it. There's a shedding of rules, which is sometimes difficult, it's sometimes emotionally difficult. I think in the early days, my role was Business Development Account Manager, a really bad project manager. But I've never said no, which is kind of a you probably didn't finish a sentence. Yes, was the answer. Will there be any cost implications? And I knew Yes, in my head. No, absolutely. No, it was terrible. As you start to hire people, and you're still servicing this, a large majority of clients that are probably right for your size, and you're right for them. But as you start to plan and this, the key thing is you've got to be planning as an agency. How do I get to those bigger pieces of business? What are we offering? What's our skill set? What skill sets do I need to bring in as you start to grow? You've got to reflect, you've really got to look back and say Can I see a growth trajectory for these clients that I've got right now? Whether it's yes, ingratiate yourself with them, and grow with them, and let them know you're gonna go with them. Start to package your stories right now not to go. I can take on tensors head to head, because you can, you know, well, I can take them on. And then know that as you go through the gears of growth, that you have to get rid of some of your tier three clients that you know, you have to naturally pass them on, and pass them on gracefully, you're not because they have you been on a journey together. That's a gift. That's probably been the partnerships. And probably one of its most fruitful and joining us two companies are growing together. But there's no point in saying I can keep hold of tier three clients. When I get up to tier two and tier one. They need different skill sets. And your product, every client is demanding and quite rightly so it keeps us at the top of our game. But you can keep on some clients through nostalgia that are really, you know, really impacting your bottom line. And you know, drawn on because I am still dialling they will not be dying on account money, they'll dial you at home. Come on what's going on? And you're gone. As you know, either you're 50 or you go. Can you do this? Yes, you know, the gag, because you're programmed to you've actually probably known them as friends now. you've outgrown them, you know, and it's like life and life you go through phases of friends from school to university. And so you still have friends there, but you develop different interests.
Robert Craven 23:35
So there is a guy in the 60s called Ed Greiner, who created this thing called the grinder model. Loads of people have stolen it. But basically it's saying church and Lewis stole it and other people have claimed it to be they're basically saying that the lifecycle of an agency or a business is the same as a child. So it's baby, toddler, infant, young, adolescent, adolescent, young adult. And at each stage, you have different ways of selling different ways of administering different ways of pricing different ways of different challenges each stage. Add on to Greiner, which we've used in some work at ours, which is when you start you're 100% in the business, when you were a three person business, you were all over everything you knew every person you did all the work, you totally under present in the business. And as the business grows, you're less than less in the business as a technician. And you're more and more working on the business delegating, which you didn't do at all when you started because you are the man and there's a turnover point where what people sign up for whether they start at 1, 25 or 50 or 100. What they sign up for and the skill set they have for the journey for the next two or three years. It flips and typically, you know, the one man band ends up with 25 People are not doing any work in the business. So they're in has just totally gone down, and they're on has totally gone up. And of course, the conundrum is the very thing you started that made you so good, your pointy head being a really good technician is almost totally irrelevant, because what you actually need now is awesome delegation and strategic skills. And there's also a softer curve for as you go from 1 to 200 people, but, I think that's why so many agencies struggled to get above 25. Because the skill set of most people is well, you know, 2 million turnover and, you know, 25 people, that's pretty good, you know, I'm pretty happy with that. And I'm taking under 50k out of the business, and they don't understand what the next chapter involves. And maybe it's almost, it's not what they wanted. So it's not uncommon to see people take agencies from 50, where they should have just bailed at 25, they've taken now at 50, where they're handed over to another team, a professional team to take the agency from 50 to 200. So I think there's something about the mindset and the skill set of the of the senior team, you know, that you just have to look, I see it very often, you know, boards that I chair, and you look around and you think three years time we expect to be on the front page of campaign. Because we're going to sell the agency for 15 million quid. Can we imagine that photo with our faces on it? So our agency just sold it for 15 million quid or whatever it is. Because as I look around the room, I can see that we were the right team to get us where we are now. But we're not the right team before a business twice the size of what we are now. And that conversation applies at 200 or 100 off or 50 staff. We've got the right people on the bus, Jim Collins would say.
Garry Hamilton 27:11
Absolutely right. We actually had a conversation, and it's quite intra. You need a bit of luck. In this game, you always do your win that you do that. And we were lucky. And we won a couple of big clients. We were lucky first of all, that we were there at the beginning Ash 1999. With a passion for that and gave up geekier CMOS gave up Greek Yes, completely different careers, and got on board with a piece of technology that is arguably as equally important as industrial revolution. Lock. Number one, the second piece of luck that we had was I've got two great partners, and the three of us have completely different skill sets. And nobody wants to do the others job. No one, when we saw more than two that 25 to 50 more that had Jimmy fantastic creative that we could rely on fantastic in a pitch. You have believe that I love hunting and solving problems. And we had John McLeish at the helm. Who fantastic operations, human resources aren't really sitting as a sitting around the table saying, Look, we need to grow here, you you We can't do this all ourselves. And then that first stage was bringing in that middle that the first layer of management, which we all have, you look back and go, Why the heck did we ever hire there? Because you thought was right, you still hired pet on a personal basis. I remember even 25 used to still sit down altogether, and do customers bonuses. And the reality is this before you get materials, the reality is you probably made that decision a year on the finances. But how well they performed the last six weeks and not, you know, material appraisals, like how did you perform over the years, and that comes with it. But I'll never forget John is a great guy. And he came out probably we had 50 to 70. And we saw a saw I said what the next plan is as we go through the gears again, and a very clear five year plan that we know where we're going to get organic growth and net new as our next phase of development is ultimately we've got to go make ourselves redundant that from a person emotionally I was I don't like this, you know, there was almost a fear that you're gonna bring. So that is why we did make yourself redundant, that the entity is not completely involved that you know, the three individuals that are extremely lost, intertwined in the agency, that if there is an exit now we're all exiting at Some point you live chatted about this before, you know, you're either going bust, coffin retirement or you're there's some form of exit or in terms of a sale or an MBA or something you are going at this entity at some point that was a way forward. And that took ourselves as we've gone from 50 to 75 to 100 plus to reevaluate probably eight years with Watson is that the right management team to be a senior management team, and there were changes, some were staying where they were so big changes. I am very much a passionate football fan. And everything can come down to a football manager, you know, you've got the resources, you've got some keeps on your training. So you move on that you have to get that mindset and understanding to PTS pleat, your specialisms. And then having the discipline as opposed to when you're 10, 15, 20 Strong, having lunch every day, and discussing the problems intimately there to having the discipline to have a board meeting. Talking deep voice again, board meeting with an agenda. And with an agenda and a set of actions that you have to hold one another accountable to. That's the maturity in the years that you've put you push through with a plan and with accountability, but it's quite an emotional state of mind to get yourself.
Robert Craven 31:26
To kind of push you on that accountability piece, because I totally get that. And you know, as someone who chairs the borders of a couple of agencies, is like, you know, Fred in the corner, brilliant head of brilliant, technically brilliant, it's not going to strategic bone in his body can't see the big picture. Brilliant as a head off, and we need to take him forward because he is brilliant. But he shouldn't be involved in strategic thinking because he wouldn't, and he just doesn't understand that. What's going on the market, what's going on the industry, how we're perceived by customers, how we're perceived by competitors. What's uh, so I think that's one of the limits that not everyone has that entrepreneurial thinking. But the thing I just wanted to ask about was, you said accountability, yeah, I get that. We all talk about accountability. So what happens if someone on the board doesn't deliver? Because operations are making its plans dependent on the biz dev, man, you going out and pulling in a coming back with a zebra gazelle. What happens if the biz dev guy doesn't deliver? Are you really held to account? Are there consequences of underperformance in the boardroom for you?
Garry Hamilton 32:53
Yes, there are, first of all, you've certainly got a legal and moral obligation to yourself. And yeah, and you may think, yeah, that's just like boardroom talks, talking about there's not you're actually have to stand to character, what's going on. There'll be implications that are something to be felt at a team level that they need to go because of this is because of you going forward. There'll be implications financially that the three of us will have in terms of our plan going forward that these things will not be realised. And there's difficult conversations at our board level, some of them heated, which I think is good. I think if you sit on a board meeting, and it's pleasant, and you go through and everything is all well, that didn't happen. Should we try harder? You're playing it, or you're playing at it, like it is what happened here. And sometimes it's X, Y, and Zed or sometimes, you know what I actually don't know. And I think we need to go and do this. That's okay, as well. But that is then said, we need to come together as a team to come and solve this. Yeah. In terms of whether we've got KPIs for the year and in terms of operational performance, sales performance, profitability, utilisation right across the board, you're analysing these different levels. And there needs to be accountability for that. You don't just sit there and you sit there, I've been there and you squirm because it's your responsibility to do this. Why hasn't it happened? And what are you going to do about it?
Robert Craven 34:44
What are the consequences of underperformance? And the ultimate one is you get booted out the midrange.
Garry Hamilton 34:56
Certainly, I'm lucky enough, we all are the implied one, it could be that you could be moved sideways, you know, are you is this the right role for you? It could be that what has happened before, as you're grasping to try and get, you still got the mindset of 50 size agency that I can bring BD. And actually, Garry, you need help. I know you love doing this, and you've done this, but actually, you need to help me and you've got to go, you know what, you're right. You're absolutely right, I can't do that, as much as I want to try to do it and bring it all in. I mean, you need to see a new maturity, and then someone else comes in and helps. And then. So that would be structurally, you know, hierarchical to begin with. But then as you get through again, you've got to get your head around, that person could sit, probably not on a board meeting, but on a growth board or an operational board and sit there as an equal. And in front of peers, question your decisions, or questioning why you did that, or come up with ideas, which is fantastic. That takes an emotional maturity to get around that. And is that an easy transition? No, I had to get my head around it. You know what? I am not the Oracle of all things that bring in it. No, actually not. And you know, when you get your head around it and realise that's a team effort. And it's good to have you sort of mentioned that at a senior team on the boss that may have done this before, in similar organisations are sometimes worth it, but entrepreneurial, is actually competent to drive forward again. Okay, so we're recording this in July 2020. Where I'm not going to say with post COVID, because it's a student come back, you can quote me on that. It's not over. Did COVID hit Equator? And how did you respond? Honestly, what a difference a few weeks make. We were certainly impacted by Brexit. You know, in terms of the big transformational job, you mentioned three or four years to get a big contract with Google. We were talking a few years protracted negotiations with a lot of big blue chips, about big capex projects that were maybe happen and Brexit happened, the floodgates opened, and we sat as we did first quarter was over. And you know what? It's got to be a bloody good year. I mean, a good GLR Happy Days. And the world have changed. And I said, what we're known for is four or five verticals. One of them was travel. And we work with about 45% of the UK talk to our hotel 10s. Of course I just stopped at the red ocean, right? Okay, we work fine. We're really not in finance, the acceleration was fantastic for those guys. Because when it took the city 15 years, they know that addressing down Friday is not just taking a tie off and working from home is not shocking from home and being in an office for 12 hours a day does not equate to like proper output, the accelerated. But what we did as an agency is what we did in 2008 as you need to be brave, and you need to be seen. So we followed a handful of staff on top of the performance channels for the hotel sector. As you know, that's a decision that had to be made. I mean, literally a handful, low, low, low single figures of agency. But what we did do is say this is an opportunity to engage with our tier one. So we doubled down on thought leadership, we got all our team together. So since then, we went out with live webinars, we went out with 10 of them to each of our sectors we've created for thought leadership papers, how to respond and what to do, what the landings were from 2008. We knew like from a BD guy, our I know we've all got business continuity plans, but that they're not that good in terms of LTQ. Not that good sorry, in terms of people will pick up this T one suite that they've never done before, they will make fundamental errors on their emails, I will say, sorry, I'm working from home right now, here's my mobile happy days. And we just got on the phone and invited them. And we have never our cost per engagement of a C suite. Target has reduced from four figures, significant four figures, to about 80 pounds. And they are engaged, and they're coming back to be engaged. And they're asking questions on live webinars and downloading stuff. And then asking us what you have. So once we've managed to just push through it. So it's been lucky. And I stick in a lot of effort. And it's taking a lot of our senior team that have been with us for 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years to just, singularly know, this is how we will get through this. And what so far has worked. So we're picking up pieces of business off the back of it, luckily.
Robert Craven 41:15
But is that kind of the startup mentality? You know, I mean, I have a legacy client who I've worked with probably for 9 or 10 years, it's a chain of cocktail bars. They've just literally just opened and it literally, okay, so we're operating with 40% capacity, if we can make that 40% capacity, 44% capacity, if we could find a way of getting another 20 people into this venue. Yeah, that's 10% more revenue, you know, 10% more revenue if we can just if so, normally, we open at six, let's do breakfasts. In fact, let's do two sittings of breakfasts. In fact, let's do breakfast with unlimited alcohol, how much drink can people let, um, we could do lunchtime, we've always wanted to do food. And you know, one week after locked down, you know, a record weekend, because the business has been reengineered. What I've always said is about, we need to spread the shoulders of the business. So it's not just Friday and Saturday night, but it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday nights as well. But also, it's lunchtime. And also it's mornings. And who knows, we don't know whether that's going to last or not. But for agencies, it's the same thing. And I love this phrase of yours, which I wrote down, which is you need to be brave, you need to be seen. So many agencies, you know, if I've said it once I've said it a million times your share of voices share of market. They've gone oh my god, everyone's cutting, everyone's reducing, everyone's slowing down. We need to think about being more price competitive. We don't want to upset them. That actually, you had greater opportunity to talk to people right now than ever before, because they've got calls at 9, 10, 11 and 12. But they've got nothing else going on in the middle of it because they don't know what to do. No longer all the opportunity to think about the thing it's about on the whole is about building on your brand or building on your reputation or building on existing engagement. There is this opportunity now. Like No Other because as you say, if you've gone from 4 figures to 80 pound for the cost of customer acquisition.
Garry Hamilton 43:38
Yeah, don't engage them with a piece of content. It's off the skill normally Yeah, office skill. No, what does that say? That says that it is accessible to any agency regardless of the size. So it's easy to you know, it's easy for me sitting here saying that no, it's that your valuable content will get cut through regardless and know who you're talking to. I will solve these problems here. And it's okay to say it looks bloody beaten bleach and I think that will go up. But I think that as an opportunity. You've got an opinion. You know, you're not and even now I think everyone is going out. I don't know about you. If I see another email but COVID and I'm blind. I'm COVID Blind No. Be on the list of symptoms for COVID blindness, improve it. Don't do it anymore. It's not about that. It's like you get caught through just thinking about yourself.
Robert Craven 44:42
And I said to you on the earlier call. I've got a fly trying to compete with me. I got some clients were locked down got released a couple of weeks ago, and I asked them what would they have done had they been going in to lock down and they said, we would have been marketing from 7 in the morning to 10 at night, because as the world changes, and people wake up to realising there is business, they're going to start looking for people to help them to make that business happen. And you need to be there. Why anyone who's got any kind of involvement in the marketing world thinks that this is the time that they reduce their marketing is totally bonkers. I mean, it's like going back to what your bloody core values are. And sell who you are and what you are and what you do. And now we can demonstrate this is who we are and what we do. This is the perfect time to demonstrate what we do.
Garry Hamilton 45:47
100%, two weeks of lockdown, we had the first thought leadership people out, which was what are the lessons from the 2008 recession? What did we learn? And sure different sectors will be affected. What I did sure those that maintained their investment in marketing, this is a key thing, relative to competitors sharing their voice so that yeah, that being that dynamic and pivoting, not doing the same must be always on, recovered dramatically faster and got market share over the next five year period.
Robert Craven 46:22
And the irony is that all those papers, which I quoted are from Ernst and Young Harvard Business School, Sorbonne, INSEAD. So, you know, although I'm thinking about myself, although I spoke at these organisations, they have actually got the research and they've got the numbers written down. And there are some terrifying graphs of the performance of those that cut the fat but not the muscle being 13 to 19%, better off three years after their recessions, who knows what will happen this time.
Garry Hamilton 47:06
But even in terms of some of our in our property vertical, there's different types of clients in there that we do a lot of performance work for. Our advice to them wasn't keep on people are still looking. It's okay. It was right. How quickly do we get video viewing is going that was the initiative to keep the project. This is how we're going to be tackled. Are you resisting it just to keep it on people, you have to have an insight and an initiative to keep up. And also the confidence to say, drop it slightly here. Because by being honest and saying you're not going to return there, but this is where it is going you can help them pivot. What you don't want as are stopping everything.
Robert Craven 48:02
I love the fact that you got a large agency, that you're still able to move really quickly. You've kind of got the you know, the mindset of the stars.
Garry Hamilton 48:13
We did it structurally, it's quite interesting that you said that. When we hit 100, something happened, we've always been known for being entrepreneurial, dynamic, flexible, and can really pivot to client problems. You may say our boss wants Galbraith to have them all. But although being 100 still probably acted like an agency size of 25-30. Every year John says to the agency, right? Whatever we did last year, forget it. This is the one that was performed. But when we hit 100, all of a sudden one middle, you know new processes, which are needed to go and it was like turning a tanker with us for about a year. I'm gonna see if we can process this and it needs to go scheduling and I go across the aisle and go there and all of a sudden that robot moves. So again, sitting on a board, we made the decision to pick the army so what's gone wrong? All the key KPIs that we watch are plummeting client satisfaction is not really should be, it should be above 85% of the piece, the elements are not. And we realised actually, structurally, we've got something wrong. And we made the decision to break the agency and before we said what was the perfect size and the size probably perfect size was about depends on what you're doing around about 40-45. You've got the skill sets, you know, you can really make it, we call them tribes. Yeah. What are they? They're just the agencies within an agency with a p&l that stay with a client in Jamaica, and really adding value as opposed to, yes, I have you as a client, but you will be trafficked through the system. And given to someone that will probably see these, you know, see if you ever can have your brand who can i Who that had been a client of yours for seven years, why don't you know my brand, you know, and it was the difference it made, in terms of to the clients, fantastic to our operating model, superb, but also gave one of the things you've got to think about as keeping staff. So it was a challenge. We've got real lucky, you know, a lot of us senior group account directors, 7, 8, 9 years, where do they go next? So you've seen to them, I've got to get more agency, okay. And if they're probably going to look right, well, okay, I've had that client for 10 years. Or what's going to happen as it's gonna go, that they can see a growth model where they're going forward?
Robert Craven 50:56
So what you're talking about, Garry, this idea of tribes is fantastic. Because Andy Mounts the per who I interviewed from agency UK, he has this idea that the perfect size for finance, happiness, connectivity, skill sets, engagement with the clients it's about 32. And he's made a conscious decision to not let his agency grow any larger than that. And I guess what you do by having tribes and your number is 40. Is it for tribes?
Garry Hamilton 51:26
It's 40. Yeah.
Robert Craven 51:29
It's a similar thing. And I know those tribes, by industry specialisation or by functional speciality.
Garry Hamilton 51:39
There's a couple of cuts on this one on function. And there's three sectors, although one tribe can have workers of similar sorts. What allows us to do is have competitors work in the agency, because they're working completely separate from different studios, as well. So you can overcome any challenges that.
Robert Craven 52:02
So called Chinese walls. We're getting close to running out of time, there's a couple of questions I'd like to ask. One is, how do you see the marketplace for agency work changing? Do you see that everyone's going to end up switching to some model of digital transformation? Because the one thing that COVID proven to us is that all businesses need to be more internet savvy, more digital. Or do you see that there'll be a switch back to to specialisation, where you have a Content Agency employing lead no 50 or 100 people? Or you have an SEO agency or you're a performance agency or you have a design and build agency or you have a business transformation? And also, how do you see the big players and the consultancies shuffling around that piece?
Garry Hamilton 53:05
In terms of agency specialism, first and foremost, I think there'll be an acceleration and digital transformation, right across all sectors from the most resistant particularly for the most resistant, but also the small to medium players, particularly in b2b, that's going to open up and go up. So and when I see transformation, I don't mean trading online. That let's be clear, you're not actually changing entirely, how they do business in the processes of supporting that. In terms of the specialisms I still think they're going to be there, I think the me take a short term reshuffle of budget as how do organisations pay for this transformational change. But if the content agency is still relevant, is the search agency still relevant in terms from the agency landscape itself? I think in the short term, there will be fragmentation. From the medium size down as redundancies happen, I think it'll spin up smaller agencies who will put even further downward pressure on rates, particularly if they go straight back to the clients who were working on and say, Actually, I can do that for half the price. That's a challenge. I think there's an element of at the other end of the agency, I think that there's going to be at most two years even more consolidation you know, in terms of as the big traditional marketing agencies really scale up the buying up transcript proper transformation agencies to actually close that circle, and I can only see the consultancies themselves. I still think the Lord up the big ft. to 50 and up and own that domain, but I see a more consolidated, more powerful dynamic consultancy, that offers production as well, knowing, you know, working, ticking them head to head on the song. And you know, I'm challenging others.
Robert Craven 55:20
Where does that leave you? Because you're in an oft quoted phrase of mine, you're too big to be small. And you're too small to be big. So you've already made it clear that you're not competing on price. But one could argue that's if you step back. That makes it quite difficult. Or do you just see that as a pure opportunity to be big?
Garry Hamilton 55:54
It's an interesting position to be in from a quaintest perspective, I actually think we're gonna go through another period of accelerated growth. In terms of the two, I can quite easily see us break the 250 barrier, and two years, two and a half years. And I would see us working in partnership with other agencies our size, our size. So new Strategic Economic alliances, to take on the bigger projects have normally been the domain of the likes of the consultancies, which are interesting times, and you've just got to adapt and go with it and embrace it. It's fun.
Robert Craven 56:40
You know, like, they say, there's an 80/20 in the 80/20, in the 80/20. In the 80/20. It's almost the same thing in that triangle, there's unbounded opportunity. It's cool. So tell me, what next for Garry in the Equator? What are you cutting projects in mind? Is it just more of the same?
Garry Hamilton 57:02
Oh, no, no, it's we've got a plan. Five Year Plan that we are working through . As I said, you've always got to know where you're going as an agency, which is more growth, is looking at acquisition, and books are certainly strategically important. For Garry, so Garry just needs to get back into London again, when our rate is good. I have never, my wife and I have realised I've not been home for 20 years. You know, the reason the strength of our marriage is that I've never been here. So I'm eager to get out there again. And I'm still loving the new challenges. I still get up every day and think how can I make a difference with it? That's the difference is having about lifelong passion.
Robert Craven 57:45
Cool. And final question I'd ask everyone. Top Tips, golden nuggets, secret sauce for agency leaders,what are the things that you kind of wish you'd been told 20 years ago? What do you think is the thing that I want to share with people?
Garry Hamilton 58:11
And I think I've covered it today. Learn from yesterday, you've got to be looking back and you're not actually make changes based on it. Live for today, that is all you still got a life here. You know, don't be slave to work, regardless of how much you love it. And despite how difficult the outlook may look, hope for tomorrow, we will still be here. And we will all everyone is adapting right now and embrace that change. It's fun.
Robert Craven 58:49
That's absolutely brilliant. That's a brilliant summary of the conversation. Thank you so much for giving us insight and sharing really absolutely fascinating talking to you. And I just have to give a big thank you for really helping us understand your approach which is brilliant. So thank you very much, Garry, for taking time.
Garry Hamilton 59:13
My pleasure. Thank you.