Expert of the Month - Becky Simms - Reflect Digital
VIDEO: 45:32
Welcome to April’s GYDA Member Hub Expert of the month. This month Robert interviews Becky of Reflect Digital. Reflect fuel business growth through innovative digital marketing and technology solutions powered by neuroscience and behavioural economics.
Becky Simms
Becky is Reflect Digital’s CEO, having started Reflect Digital in 2011 she has grown the business to the strong agency team it is today. With over 16 years of marketing experience, 12 of those specifically in digital, Becky is a strategist at heart. Full of creative ideas but with an eye always on ROI, Becky has a natural talent for spotting campaign opportunities and ensuring value is delivered.
Becky often shares her start-up story, a dream of a young girl wanting to follow in her Dad’s steps to start a business one day. When the opportunity presented itself, fed up with her current role, with the support of her mum and dad and just £3,000 initial investment Becky started Reflect Digital at the age of 24. The journey has certainly had its highs and lows, but Becky has an insatiable drive to achieve and is always open to sharing the highs and the lows of building a business.
Over the years Becky has been fortunate enough to work with brands of all sizes from start-up tech businesses that have scaled to multi-million-pound entities to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. In 2019, Becky and Paul guided Reflect Digital into joining the LAB Group, a fantastic opportunity to make Reflect Digital more unique and to add a new USP, understanding human behaviour, something Becky has always been interested in.
Becky always challenges the norm, this was demonstrated when Reflect Digital brought in the 4-day working week in 2018, this led to Becky sharing their story on Sky News and since then to many other media outlets and directly with business owners, offering advice on how to make the change.
Over the years Reflect Digital has accumulated quite the trophy cupboard. Becky has personally added to this with a Young Entrepreneur of the Year award at the KEIBA’s in 2016 and more recently Agency Leader of the Year at the 2019 Wirehive 100 Awards.
Becky has a passion for all things digital, work-life balance and a real focus on developing young talent and increasing the digital industry’s visibility to students.
Robert and Becky discuss:
Who are Reflect?
Coronavirus and how it impacted Reflect
Lock down – What clients did and how Reflect reacted
Strategy for cash flow and contracts
Being open, honest and transparent
Forecasting and finances – high, medium and low risk clients
Revenue and turnover for the next 18 months
Business Development Opportunities and the team delivering it
Virtual Conferences and Events
Positioning the future internally at Reflect
The Lab Group
Innovation and Human Behaviour at Reflect
What will Reflect look like in 3 months and 12 months?
What’s next for Becky?
Becky’s Advice for other Digital Agency Owners
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:23
And hello, and welcome to the GydaTalks. And today I am absolutely delighted to have Becky here to reflect, Hello, Becky! I always wonder if it really reflects, reflects, reflects, how do you say?
Becky Simms 00:38
Hi, Robert, I always wonder if it really reflects, reflects, reflects, how do you say? I always say reflect but it's a funny one we hit we have all different things when you read through to someone you're like, reflects digital, and I'm like no reflect digital. But yeah, reflect.
Robert Craven 00:48
And it's not reflects it's reflect anyhow, absolutely fantastic to have you here. Timestamps are really important today. We're in April. And we are a couple of weeks into COVID-19. And all that is done to everyone. So I think we can't deny that it's happened. And I think what's happened is we're in a situation where businesses, vulnerabilities have been exposed. I think that's a polite way of putting it, especially in the agency world. So we're going to talk about that. And we're going to talk about how Becky has dealt with that specifically. But first, just can you just introduce yourself and introduce reflect very quickly about yourself.
Becky Simms 01:31
Yes, so I'm the founder and CEO, we've been going for nearly 10 years now. And we're a digital marketing agency with a main focus in search and having that underpinned by human behaviour.
Robert Craven 01:42
Underpinned by human behaviour, what does that mean?
Becky Simms 01:46
So well, last year, we became part of the lab group. So, Johnny twos in the team over at the lab with their psychology and behavioural economics team. So we're starting to look a bit more at how we can really understand the intent of what the user searches for? And how can we use that to our advantage to help actually drive people to take the action that our clients want them to take?
Robert Craven 02:09
Okay, okay, I get that. I get that. So I guess the big question is just the warm up to work to April 2020. IV, what's the, you know, couple of sentences describing how it was going up until St. Patrick's Day? 2020.
Becky Simms 02:30
We were flying. And that makes it all the harder, doesn't it? Yeah, we were absolutely flying. We literally the last couple of years, we've really been building momentum, you know, the group has an agency. Joining the lab last year was just a fundamental kind of step change, again, in being able to be introduced to their customers and winning new clients. And in our own right, just the level of leads coming in has been increased. We had a real focus last year on being out and about on the speaker circuit talking more events and all of that spin in working and, and yeah, and then March hits.
Robert Craven 03:08
So I mean, it's, I found that the last few weeks have been formed by the phrase therapy in some senses, that people are not only telling their story to try and figure out what actually happened and but they're also listening really intently to other people's stories to try and understand whether whether they got it worse or whether they got it better. And there's certainly been a shift in my conversations from being off sometimes being transactional to being far more of a relationship, because we're all kind of going through this together. But how, what actually happened and how did you respond? I mean, that's the question, really.
Becky Simms 04:00
So we ended up closing the office just before probably the week before lockdown actually came in. Because we had a team member that was showing symptoms. We don't actually think he had it in the end, but we had to put the protection of everyone in place. So we've been working from home definitely a week longer than the whole country. We are happy to work from home. And yeah, it just at first it was kind of almost a bit in denial of is this going to be as bad as it feels like it could be and things were carrying on that first week or so. But I think then the week locked down here, we really started to have clients pausing their budgets and digging their heels intersection, we can't continue right now. And we did the only human thing that we could do, which was say we completely understand let's, let's pause your contract. Let's be quite formal about it. And we do still have a contract here and we do expect you to pick this back up in the future but we understand that you can't carry on right now with what it was you were doing with us. So, so yeah, there's been a lot of those conversations they've slowed up now, because I think we've probably covered most of our clients that were that have been in real kind of hard hit areas.
Robert Craven 05:11
I mean, have you found that all of your votes? Yeah. Have you found that virtually all the clients have closed? Or has it just been the obvious ones like weddings and hotels and restaurants and bars?
Becky Simms 05:25
Yeah, we're probably about 50% of our retainers have paused. So some of them are still doing some level of business. Some of them are not able to work at all. So we've got clients in hospitality, for example, or one of our biggest clients is a pilot training school. So no one wants to think about being a pilot right now. It's, yeah, it's really, this, there's been the real obvious ones that have been here. And then I guess others have been hit by cyber supply chains being hit. So actually, they can stay open and do business, but actually, their supply chain can't deliver. So there's no point in them doing paid advertising right now to drive sales when they can't deliver a product. And so it's been, it's been an interesting one. And I think we just went into it. Once we realised how, how it was starting to go and that we were coming towards a lockdown. It was just let's jump on the phone and just openly talk to every customer and just ask them what's going on? What do you expect to happen? What are you preparing for right now? How can we help you?
Robert Craven 06:21
And I'd be curious, your, what's your definition of pause, because different people have different ideas. So to my mind, pause means we're not paying at the moment. But we recognise that payments will be outstanding, which will pay later. But other people have a definition of pause, which means we're just not paying for a couple of months. So what's your what's your definition of drawers
Becky Simms 06:49
Was for us in these months, so April, May, potentially June, but at the moment, we're kind of talking April, April, May or May to clients, that if they've asked the board, then we're not doing any work. Although if they do need anything from us, we're here and we can help. We're happy to do kind of strategic talks about how we get them back online. But we're not doing the day to day retainer work we would be doing, but that we expect those two months to be tacked on to the end of their contract. So if their contract finished in December, it's now going to end in February, for example.
Robert Craven 07:21
Have you had to? What's the phrase? Have you had to sort of put in the contractual piece with anyone? In other words, because it's really hard? Because there are businesses that clearly can't pay and may not be able to pay for some considerable time. So it's, it's a conundrum about on the one hand, you know, we're owed this money, and they said they're gonna pay us. On the other hand, we're human beings. And we're also not top of the queue, like the bank and the accountant and everyone else will be ahead of us in the queue. So have you had to kind of go get a bit sort of shirty with people?
Becky Simms 08:05
No, at the moment. I mean, that was our so that was part of the starting point of our strategy as well as to speak to everyone that owed us money, whether it was overdue, or was going to become due soon to just understand and how is cash? So are you expecting to bear to pay our invoice, do we? Because I think, I think there's a tendency to be scared of those conversations in normal day to day business. It's a bit like, Oh, it's a bit awkward. Can you afford to pay my invoice right now it's, but actually in a time like this, it's like, just be brutally honest with me, tell me are you going to be able to pay this invoice or not? Because I need to make plans based on knowing that. I think most of our clients are comfortable that we'll be seeing that money when we need to see it and when we're expecting to see it. So I didn't we didn't have any huge outstanding invoices. That would be a real worry to any of our clients either. So we're just monitoring that very closely, though, because actually, there was a client we chased the other day and when we tried to get through to their accounts payable department, they've all been furloughed, so it was like Oh, dear, do we speak to you now?
Robert Craven 09:12
But yeah, but it's, it's I mean, it's a real credit to what you're doing, what you've been doing with clients, you can have those conversations because certainly I've been talking to some agencies who there's one agency we're easily found. I can tell you one thing and I'm not having any kind of reduction in my dividends. I can tell you that for sure right now. And I've got contracts and I'm gonna hold these contracts up to these people and they're gonna and it just doesn't work. And then there are other people those are lovely YouTube video by Ross tavern Dale, where he where he says in the video, it says available for everyone to hear, listen, and he says that the first thing he did was freeze his own pay, and cash in his pension, you know, in order to make sure that the business could survive, because different people have different priorities, and his priority is the business comes first. And then the business people. And then Ross, that's his order of thinking about and other people think the people come first and then the business and then themselves and other people think themselves first, and other people think the clients first and then. So it's been such a test of, of what our values are one, or more importantly, it's been such a test of when people say we're open, honest and transparent. It's okay, so if you are open, honest and transparent, when you're going to tell the people you're going to furlough. When are you going to tell the person who runs the department isn't making any money, which might be video or it might be traditional, traditional advertising wherever, when you're going to tell them that you've decided to make them redundant, because? Because you're being honest, open and transparent. You're being loops. You're being selectively open, honest and transparent.
Becky Simms 11:15
Yeah. And it's tough, isn't it? And I think there's, it's never has there been such a time where in the news and the media has there been as much information around something like furloughing, which probably roll back a month, none of us even really knew what that word meant, or whatever had to use it in a sentence before. So actually a lot of the team and we, because we furloughed about a quarter of our team. And as we had those conversations with the team, they were like, Oh, I expected you to furlough me. Actually, I would have been worried if you hadn't furloughed me because they know what's going on in the media. And we've been open and transparent around what was starting to happen with clients and that we were having people to pause. And so therefore, actually, they expected it because they want their job to be protected. And they know that actually, the only sensible thing right now is if there's government support there is to take it so that we can come out of this the agency that went into it.
Robert Craven 12:08
And what do the non furloughed people think about working 40 hours a week or 35 hours a week. And former colleagues are earning just 20% Less while doing the gardening?
Becky Simms 12:27
Yeah, it's a real tough one, isn't it? And I think I think we've really tried to position it to the whole team that actually on both sides, were taking one for the team, because actually, having to not do any work be stuck in your house only really meant to be going out for either an hour or so is exercise and to the supermarket, that's actually pretty boring, like day one or two. And while you're getting the job done, it might be alright. But for a sustained period with a minimum of three weeks, actually, I don't think I'd pick that option, I'd start to go out of my mind. So actually, as lovely as it sounds, that they can sit and watch Netflix all day, I think they are taking one for the team in that sense. And then on the flip side, those that are being asked to work just as hard as they ever have to deliver the work that needs doing. Well, again, they're taking one for the team, they've got to get that work done to protect the relationships that we've got on those clients that are still trusting us to deliver work at this time and, and are still willing to part with budget in such an uncertain time, we've got to make sure we're delivering 100% for them as we would normally. So I think we've tried to position in such a way that everyone realises that this isn't great for anybody. We'd much rather all be back in the office and living life as normal.
Robert Craven 13:40
But of course, it's also a world defined by the haves and have nots, like the haves being having children versus having not children, because like they have children have children, I found it so hard to work from home. And, and the haves and have nots on gardens, because like living in a flat is very, very different from having fields outside or whatever it is. So the world has changed. Right? So you spoke with all, you spoke with all of your clients, you went direct to your clients. And because of your relationships with them, you are able to ask them upfront. Are we getting the money?
Becky Simms 14:29
Yeah, I'm just to understand what's going on in their business. And I think one of the things I mean, I had some of these conversations and then some of our more senior account managers that hold relationships did as well. It my point to them was don't be afraid of asking a question that might end up in the customer saying I need to pause my budget like yes, that's not the news. We want to hear but we're going to need to hear it if that's what they need to do. So don't be afraid of having that conversation.
Robert Craven 14:56
I think that's right. I think it's a tough call because in some senses, you feel like you're, you're almost precipitating. Oh, no, you're here, Becky, you know, we have been thinking about knocking on the head calling her day. So, yes, yes, we would like to, we would like to turn off, I actually don't think that's what's normally happening. I actually think that the majority of the time, we're getting good, honest conversations. I mean, I believe that you get the staff and you get the customers that you deserve. Or rather, you shouldn't have taken them on in the first place if they were rats. So. So that's the client. So you're furloughed a quarter of the business? Does that mean that you've got a quarter of the revenue? Is that fair to say?
Becky Simms 15:51
Probably, I mean, we're better. So of retainer business, we're about 50% down, but then we've got quite a few bits of project work going on. So we've had a lucky win with one of our customers. They manufacture hops that go into beers, and they saw that a big part of their industry is the craft industry. And they saw these breweries were going to really suffer. So they came to us and asked us to build a really quick website that was going to become a directory for how you can get Craft Beer delivered to your door in this time. So they've actually put quite a bit of money behind building that, first of all, which we turned around in about three or four days, and then in the marketing and the PR of it. So we've had a real win there of being able to actually replace some budget that was being caused elsewhere. So I'd say we probably are about a quarter down on revenue. But it's an ever changing beast at the moment.
Robert Craven 16:49
And so how do you? How are you dealing with it? Is there a cash flow forecast? Are there several cash flow forecasts? Is it so ridiculous? You don't bother doing it? Or is it so important? You look at it every day, what's? Where are you on this continuum?
Becky Simms 17:17
And we use float, which is an amazing piece of software. And it ties in nicely with zero. So we use that and in float, you can create scenarios. So we've I think we've got three scenarios running, running, one that I don't like to look at, because that's what was going to happen. And that was quite upsetting. But then we've got kind of where we think we are and also what kind of worst case scenario. So we did a bit of a risk assessment across all of our clients. And there's still some that were in our medium risk, that haven't actually paused at the moment. So we're still considering that there's a chance that that might happen. And also, within that risk assessment, we tried to look at when, like what we felt the impact would be for them as to when they would come back on. So for example, an ecommerce store that's paused just because they can't get a supply chain, the second supply chain comes back, they're going to probably be back to full budget. And back as they were, that actually some of our other businesses where it's going to be a slower start to build them back up, they might need another couple of months before they're ready to go back to the full spend they were at. So we've kind of got two different risk assessments going on. And two different cash flow forecasts. And yeah, just trying to keep on top of it and keep talking to those customers that owe us money to make sure that's, that's coming and that we don't get forgotten.
Robert Craven 18:35
I was having a conversation with someone this morning. And he was saying, so tell me he runs an agency. And he said, So what's happened to everyone's profitability? And if I don't think many people are talking about profitability, at the moment I mean, the only thing people are talking about is cash flow, because, you know, profits are nice to have at the moment. And right now it's, I mean, for me, it's really straightforward. Have you got deep enough pockets to survive the next four months? Yes or no? Secondly, if you have in four to six months time as we go into Christmas 2020. Have you got a proposition which is relevant and compelling for whatever is going on then? And then if you have got a relevant and compelling proposition to get you through Christmas, What's 2021 going to be like? Because if you just imagine imaginary numbers, if you've got 100,000 pounds in the bank, and you're gonna burn that and some more getting to Christmas, so you're down to zero or minus 50. Say, if 2021 doesn't deliver brackets, which I don't think it will, I think 2021 will be 20% for agencies be 20% down on 2019 Then you're gonna get to the end of 2021 You'll be poorer than you are now, you'd have worked your little cotton socks off for 18 months. And for some agencies, it would have made more sense for them to bail out now, even though the valleys are bad, but I keep getting emails from people saying if you know anyone who's got an agency really, really isn't interested in their people. For some people, it might be worth bailing out now, rather than working for 18 months to end up being roughly where they are now, having won back the money that they would have been around. I mean, how do you? What's your I mean, it has to be with hands, what's your, what's your, what's your view of, of revenues and turnover for the next 18 months?
Becky Simms 20:52
Yeah, and it's a bit you could do with your crystal ball that would be really helpful wouldn't hurt. So to really know, but um, I mean, we've said recently, if we were the agency that we were maybe two or three years ago, we may have struggled at this time to come through, but I think we were strong. Now we've got a really strong core retainer model, which I think will come back some a bit slower. But I'd say I hope by the end of the year, we're starting to have everyone back online. And, and we have had some really interesting inquiries over the last couple of weeks, which they're not turning into definite at the moment, because I don't think anyone wants to sign a contract and commit to anything. But there are still conversations going on, because people have got headspace right now to think about marketing. So I think it's going to all be in that process of lining up staying in contact being human in this situation. And actually back to an earlier point of those agencies that may be holding their contracts to their clients, then you're going to have to stick with it. They're the agencies that are really going to lose out because right now out of all of our suppliers, anyone that's not being helpful or human to me, they're going on to a bit of a bad list that I think will actually if I could do without you in my life, then I would because you're you're not taking this scenario into account. And this isn't, this isn't just my business. This is the world right now. And I think it's all about building those relationships now, getting closer and stronger to our customers, because actually, we're going through something together that we've never had to go through before and hopefully never will again. And using that as a springboard to grow later on in the year and into next year. So my personal hope is that for us, we will actually come out of this strong and that revenues will go back probably not quite onto the trajectory that we had planned and definitely not onto our 2021 projections. But I think our 2020 projections might come true in 2021.
Robert Craven 22:52
But if you look at what happens to the economy in recession, if you step back, look at what happens to economies in recession, they do dip, but they don't actually get the year of recession, the dip isn't that huge, on average. And that's a really dangerous thing to talk about. But the economists tend to only dip by two or 3% in, in growth of GDP. And then in high growth times, they tend to grow by eight or 10%, maybe 15%. in exceptional cases. Yeah. So the general trajectory of growth tends to continue. And I suspect that if you look at the five year period, or the three year period that the growth will be, it'll just have had this very, very nasty dip in it. And we'll recover because my son is getting married, he still needs to get married, he can't get married this June, July, I don't think he'll get married next year. And therefore, there's pubs and those taxi firms and those hotels and those caterers and on and on all the people who benefit from that train service, they'll get that suppressed demand coming up later on. People will still have 21st birthday parties they want to celebrate people will still celebrate finishing their A levels at some point, you know, all that stuff's going to happen. Maybe not in the same way. But there will be some suppressed demand, which will mean that it'll, it'll hopefully loop up and be busy. But it's, it's, it's just when we're looking at it. So in such a granular way, it's very different because I think, on balance in this three year period, roughly the same number of businesses will go bust which is 10%, eight, eight and a half 9% will go bust. It's just that an awful lot of them are gonna go bust. Not now but in about six months time with a cache. So I just think sometimes we're just a little bit too a little bit too granular about it. And then Just going back to what you were saying about customers, I mean, how are you? I know one agency that's taken its whole biz dev team and put them on credit control and credit collection. I mean, have you ever had a biz dev team? Firstly, and if you did, are they out there looking for work pitching for work? Or do you feel that's a little bit like profiteering? Where's your, where's your line on that?
Becky Simms 25:27
So we've got two people that are kind of account managers account directors biz dev, as well. We've had pubis with people before and it doesn't work, like you need people that really understand what we do to build relationships. And that brings work and, and actually, so at the moment, they're not out there looking for work, per se, but they're out there having those conversations and building relationships and, and seeing where there's opportunity, because actually for every client that is asked to pause, we are still having a conversation about that to say is that definitely the right thing to do for you right now for paid search, maybe that actually SEO is long term. If you've got the cash, don't you want to be ready and in the right positions for when things do come back, for example. So they're not actively on, I haven't given them a target and said Brian can come when this amount of work right now. But they're having the conversations and conversations ultimately will always lead to business at some point. So it's just that relationship building is carrying on.
Robert Craven 26:26
Because there are, I mean, there are people out there doing this, it's never been a better time to be doing digital marketing, you know, and follow these 10 steps and it'd be richer than your wildest. And I hope I trust they can be seen for what they are, which is snake skin, snake oil sales people because clearly, it's time for many businesses to retrench. For many businesses, I think it is about to start in 10 or 12 week. Re rediscovery rebirth, what better phrase this is the opportunity to seize the opportunity for many businesses to create new products and create great new services. The last, you know, the last decent recession we had gave us Facebook and Uber, you know, like so that's how this one this this, this recession will generate some new ways of doing things. But it is the time for everyone, including digital agencies to look at their model of working and say, Have we got that right? So I've got a client at the moment who was about to move into an office that took 130 people there in the office, which doesn't really take at. And now they realise actually, they don't need to do that. Because working from home, maybe not full time, maybe not five days a week, but working from home as an app. Absolutely an option and they don't need to have what now feels like a really traditional model or having an office with people in bizarre. How quickly that's happen? Yeah. So work. So working from home becomes more normal, selling online becomes more normal. Now. It's one thing selling a product at 1000 quid a month is much tougher selling 100,000 pound or 200,000 pound bills online. But that's become much more possible. I I can't see that. My airport visits will be like what they've been in the past. I did my Slovenia game, which I really missed. Because it's a five star hotel on the coast. It's just the most lovely place and it's a great gig called inorbit. And you'll be there as well. Oh, there you go. There you go. Easily speaking. Yes. Yeah. So we ended up. I don't know whether you did but I ended up it's of course because I did it last year I did this year and I ended up doing it. You know, the difference is that this last year, I did it and I came offstage. Oh wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I met some great people, and it was really buzzy and we were out for a fantastic meal. Wonderful fish food and the fantastic hundreds and all his team. Now that didn't that didn't happen this year. This year I sat in my shirt and boxer shorts so to speak and gave a presentation which is really hard because you're just getting nothing coming back. And you believe there's something going on and it is different there's no two ways about it is different you don't engage you don't connect in the same way messages may be the same. But that's going to happen more and more. And and and it's a question of what your what your model is so with so we're thinking for our annual conferences here that we may actually do it Online. Why? Because only the people who really want to listen turn up. I'd rather talk to 30 people who are listening to every word of the speakers, then talk to and feed 300 people when only 30 of them are really listening.
Becky Simms 30:17
Yes, a really good point. And I also think it will change. I mean, I've had it before where clients like, I really need you to come tomorrow for a meeting. Can you be here at 12 o'clock tomorrow? And I'm not. I suppose I can squeeze it in or find a way. But actually, I feel like it will be more accepted now yeah, of course, I will. I'm gonna zoom in. Is that all right kind of thing? And, and actually, it'd be hard for people to say no to that after what we've, what we've been through recently. And that doesn't mean I mean, I love I'm struggling a little bit not having the proper face to face human contact and, and meeting people. And because my day job is in and out of meetings, workshops, and running around London all day. And I do miss it. But it's not always necessary. And actually, it is an added expense. And it's an added couple of hours onto every day that isn't always really needed.
Robert Craven 31:12
So we're living, Houston. Usually we're living, we're living in interesting times. Right? So finances tick, clients, tick staff, tick, how to turn of interest, how have you have you have you positioned the future to your staff? Or is that kind of self-evident that?
Becky Simms 31:46
We don't know. But I guess what we've said to them as we spent a week or so looking at what the strategy was going to be and making decisions on what we were going to do about furloughing, etc. And all of that messaging around this is protecting us so that we are all back together at the end of this and can pick back up where we were and start to grow again and start to start to get back to what was business as usual. So yeah, I think we're just trying to be really open and honest. We always are with our team, I think I'd always rather let them know what's going on and, and leave nothing to nothing to surprise. And yeah, and then we're just doing tons of initiatives at the moment, the same as I think most businesses are, especially agencies or Yeah, online pub quizzes, and lunchtime yoga sessions, and all the things that just try and help us still feel like we're connected to our team.
Robert Craven 32:40
But it hasn't been I mean, one of the things about this time is that it has I've started doing yoga again. And it's amazing. I was like, I think when I last did it properly was when I was a student with long hair and thought it was a cool thing to do. And now I feel like I'm an executive de-stressing, but it is, but it is stunning that we do things in different ways. I haven't slept in my own bed for 30 consecutive nights ever. I've always been on trains and planes and hotels, and it's like, I'm in the same place next to the same person. Not that I'm not normally next to the same.
Becky Simms 33:22
I just think you were digging a hole there.
Robert Craven 33:24
I wasn't gonna just keep on people. You talk a bit about obviously, this relationship with the lab has impacted on the business. Can you kind of fill us in a bit on what on because it sounds like that is a clear differentiator where everyone stands up and says Hello, we're a performance agency video, SEO and PPC and there are beanbags. And there's our free ping pong table and we've even got our Google Google water.
Becky Simms 33:57
So you know, performance agencies work well.
Robert Craven 34:01
So that sounds like it's a real differentiator. So can you just talk a bit about that? Yeah. 100%.
Becky Simms 34:07
So when, so we the the deal went through last September with lab and we got to spend quite a bit of time obviously ahead of that getting to know each other but also starting to look at what we would what we would be able to do and I think
Becky Simms 34:26
They're actually part of labs. So they purchased part of our agency and we now sit within the lab group. We are an agency well. We're not quite an agency, one lab is agency one with an agency to join the group. With more to follow obviously, this year might have scuppered some of the plans or maybe actually enhanced some of the plans yet to be known. But yeah, so we are now part of them as an agency. So Paul and ice and my husband and business partner are still very much running but sitting under that umbrella group of lab and the And then our whole team got trained in psychology and behavioural economics. So one of the things that labs do really well is translate all that great stuff that you can go and read books about, etc. But they've actually turned it into models that you can use in digital marketing and in kind of UX, and, and they've been on that journey. So I think there's more and more kinds of psychology based agencies popping up or people saying it's something that they've got a skill in. But I think actually labs have really spent that kind of five years or so building that and turning it into models that work because it's quite easy to go. It sounds amazing. And ah, we could use this and then you go away, but how do we actually use it? And how do you also sell it to a client? I think Daryl from the lab always says, When he first started kind of talking to clients about neuroscience, they would sit there in the meeting, and you'd see I was so involved and excited. And then about right, do you want to buy it? And they're like, No, I don't know if I do because? Because it wasn't productized enough. And it wasn't clear. It sounds really good. But how do we turn it into something and, and that's what they've spent five years working on. And we've been able to now reap the rewards of that, but also start to take it into a new area. So they've never done a search before. So we're now looking at it from SEO and paid search to see how we take the models they've built? And how do we build on those and turn them into more into our products. So that's the big thing this year, one of our big focuses from all kinds of January vision settings was innovating and starting to use these human behaviour ideas. So we're trying to keep that going. Now we've got a bit more spare time as well, to see what more we can do with what we've done already.
Robert Craven 36:43
We are furloughed people that can be trained. That's what's permitted. So you can give them 37 hours a week of voluntary training to do exactly, exactly. So. So yeah, you're gonna come out fitter? Yeah, you can find your SEO. I mean, I know. I know. It's a big leap, that you can show your SEO people how to do PPC and vice versa. Haven't heaven forbid, they should cross that a bit. And I think that's spot on. Because I think that, you know, one of the things that's missing from the client point of view is that, you know, especially PPC was sold, as you can see the ROI clear as day. And of course, that's obviously it could have been disapproved, I would argue, or it's being challenged. And, but it goes the extra step, because clearly there isn't a three step, matrix, three letter, mnemonic, whatever to make this stuff work. And it's more than, it's more than it's very difficult to explain what makes it work and what doesn't work. And there is theory, and there is research about how people respond to different stimuli? And what order and speed and time and volume of stimulus in what format generate, what kind of response and so on. So brilliant, love it.
Becky Simms 38:26
Yes. It's such an exciting time. And I think we don't even 100% know where we're gonna go with it yet. We've got ideas on what we're testing and what we're working on. But I think that that is exciting. And I think there's gonna be lots of content coming out later this year on what we're doing. So definitely watch this space.
Robert Craven 38:45
So two questions, and you don't know the answer to either of them. What do you think the agency will look like in three months? And what do you think the agency will look like in 12 months time, what's what's going to change?
Becky Simms 39:00
Three months, I'd like to hope we'll be back working together in an office, but that would be my hope that we're back together. And back starting because we've always allowed people to work from home. But actually, we have such a collaborative nature because at our core, we do still have a full service nature. We've got really strong developers, really strong designers, and then about 65% of the businesses on the search side, we do collaborate and we work really closely together. So as much as slack and zoom are doing a great job for us at the moment. It's not the same as being in that office together, and we moved last November into beautiful new offices that everyone loves so much, and I think, yeah, my hope is in three months. We're back together. I think. I'd hope the majority of our retainers are back on but I think there'll be some that are still not ready to come back because their businesses won't be there yet. But we'll be talking to them and be trying to help them think about their messaging because some of them will need to change their tact and think, again about how to, for example, the pilot training, you can't then just do straight away when the flights start happening again, say, right want to be a pilot, you've actually got a bit of damage control to do their to make that sexy again, because even for youngsters that aren't day to day in the business world that we're in, no one can escape knowing how hard hit pilots and airlines have been throughout this period. So it's, yeah, there's going to be a lot of work to do there, I think. But hopefully, some of the leads that have been coming in are going to start to be ready to turn around. So I'm quite optimistic that in three months time, we'll be starting to find our feet again, and starting to see that revenue coming back up. And then 12 months well, yeah, I again, I hope that it's more of the same. I am feeling optimistic. And I hope I'm right, because it's much nicer than the other option of it not being so good. But I think there'll be, I think they'll just be there will be changes across the industry, though. And I think especially those businesses that have never been willing to work from home, it's so interesting to see how they've been forced to. And it will be interesting to see how that changes then going forward. And actually, if it pushes them a bit more towards digital in other ways. And if that brings us more opportunity. So yeah, I think it's very much to watch this space on that and see, but being ready for it and just trying to try to just watch cash until then as well.
Robert Craven 41:35
Yeah, yeah. And what's next for Becky?
Becky Simms 41:42
Well, I'm so I'm finding it weird at the moment, because I think I said earlier, my day to day job doesn't overly exist anymore, this running around and running workshops and doing some of that remotely, but it's not the volume. So I'm taking time at the moment to read and to put my head into some of the strategy stuff that we don't get time to do. I mean, I have found myself saying this before, and I feel like I could Jinx this scenario. Like I said earlier this year, I wish I had some time to pause for a minute. And yeah, here it is. So I'm trying to make the most of being a bit quieter to have some headspace to think. And then the hope is that later this year, we can get back to being out and about talking to people, releasing some of the ideas and the content that we've got having actually done some tests with it as well. Back on the speaking circuit and sharing some of our knowledge. I mean, I absolutely love being out and about and sharing what we're doing. And yeah, so that's, that's where I hope to be.
Robert Craven 42:41
I love it. Absolutely love it. So finally, this is always a tricky one, or do you have? So people are always, I mean, one of the reasons that people listen to these interviews is they're trying to figure out what your secret sauce is, in a way. And if you told them, it wouldn't be secret, or maybe it would still be secret, because they're not you and they can't apply it. But have you got any kind of top tips or top hints or, or kind of beliefs that you think other agency owners or owners, the ones listening should be taking on board.
Becky Simms 43:25
I think being human is the most important thing and being authentically that with your team with your clients, I think more than ever now, it feels like everyone has permission to do that. But I think we always have permission to be human and be authentic and have all these honest conversations and share how we're feeling. So for me, that's a big part of the strength of our agency, we share, we talk, we always check in. And that's not a check in as health work is going. It's also a check in what's going on at home, how things are like being open. And I think also just for now taking time to think about yourself and get a good routine while you're stuck at home. So I'm exercising every morning, I'm doing yoga as well. And just think about what's going to be good for your mental health because most agency owners won't be doing their normal job at the moment. Some of the team are actually lucky, they've just moved their normal job to home. But many of us are doing things that aren't normal day to day and we've lost part of that. So finding time to be okay with that and to find other things that might not feel like work normally sitting reading a book that feels like a leisurely thing that actually if you're reading the right stuff, and you're putting your mind to it. You're helping yourself and your health and your future self and the future business. So yeah, take that time.
Robert Craven 44:43
Brilliant. Absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Becky for being our guest. In these interesting times. It's been a week where I think I'd been on zoom from seven in the morning till 9am Night and to suddenly be doing a formal interview. Formal formula interviews are just one to one is quite bizarre. So thank you very, very much indeed for being our guest that's been absolutely brilliant. 45 minutes. Thank you so very much. Thank you for having me.