Video - Gareth Healey on Stand Out or Die
VIDEO: 44:39 mins
AUTHOR: Robert Craven and Gareth Healey
In this GYDA talks, Robert talks to Gareth Healey about his new book 'Stand Out or Die.' Gareth is an agency coach who has been there and done it. He has over 25 years experience in the sector and for 15 years was the CEO and joint equity partner of his own £12.5M agency. Employing 175 people, and with offices in Leeds and London, Gareth’s business and was voted the Top Regional Advertising Agency in the UK by Campaign Magazine.
In 2017 Gareth exited his agency. He now focuses on helping other agency owners maximise their potential, grow their businesses and realise their dreams.
Stand Out or Die
Demand for digital services has exploded in recent years...but so has supply. The digital agency sector remains a highly competitive market. Anybody can set up a digital agency. Not everyone can grow one. In order to grow you need to stand out. You need to capture the attention of two different audiences; clients and talent. Both these groups are faced with an incredible amount of choice as to who to work with. Making the right choice is often something of a gamble. Will they choose your agency? This book will help you stack the odds in your favour.
Everybody wants to grow. Everybody wants to stand out. Everybody wants to know the secret of doing both.
Robert and Gareth discuss:
Why did you write the book?
What is the key message?
Why are so many agencies so mediocre?
What drives you mad about the agencies you see these days?
Classy tools that the book contains
https://www.beyond-noise.com/standout-or-die/
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:07
Hello and welcome to GYDA Talks. Today I am absolutely delighted to have with me, Gareth Healey, who works with us here at Gartner initiative. And more importantly, Gareth has just got a relatively recently a new book out, which is why party wise here today, most of it today, so firstly, congratulations on the new book, Gareth.
Gareth Healey 00:30
Thank you very much, thank you, Robert. Yeah, it's as you know, being an author, it's multiple author. But the first one hopefully, is, hopefully the second one, if I ever get around to it's been easy. It was a it was a mammoth task. So I'm delighted that it's finally out there and published.
Robert Craven 00:47
Yeah, the first album, the first album always have like 10 years worth of work in it. I also want to fit this in that and I think you get a bit more relaxed. So I mean, why the book? Why, why, why? Why write a book, behind me of other book other books?
Gareth Healey 01:04
Yeah, of course, obviously a question. But I, I mean, I have genuinely always wanted to write a book, it was sort of on the never thought I'd get around to it. If I'm honest, I did actually do it. But it was on the bucket list. Locked down one, I thought provided the great, great opportunity to do that, which he did, but but but didn't get done and lock down one and it didn't get done in finished in lockdown two, and it didn't get finished in lockdown, three. So so it took a lot longer than I thought. But I thought at the end of the ideal opportunity, when we were sadly in the situation we're in last year was a great time to sort of realise that dream. I know I'm not alone, because I speak to publishers and publishers are absolutely stacked out with work. Because lots of people know, you know, for all different reasons, genres and different books, but lots of people took that opportunity, but I did as well. So it was out in November last year. Very proud of it. And the fact that I'm gonna have to take that that one off. But in terms of that, for me personally, that was the reason but I also of course, you know, why write the book, what's it's called stand out or die. It's about digital marketing agencies and about making them more visible, desirable, valuable. Why digital marketing agencies? Well, clearly, it's our, our business you and I and sort of what we, what we spend our time on. But it was something I always felt, from my work recently that I wanted to help people really, and I wanted to sort of help the guys and girls that are in what I call the squeezed middle. So they're not they've not just started, then up the bin with the girl in the business for quite a while, three years plus, usually. And, you know, they're doing okay, they might have a great business, but actually, it's sold, it's plateaued, it's, it's the growth has stalled. So I wanted to write the book to try and give them some pointers to help them, you know, get out of that stall position, really. And for my learnings and things that I had done in the past, what can I give them in this book to help them get and shift gears again and get get back on the growth trail? was the reason really?
Robert Craven 03:05
Yeah, so for me, so firstly, well done great book. And I don't say that about many books in the industry to be honest, because they have niggling things which really irritate me like they've not been edited properly, or they're, they're all about the author, or they're all about this is what I did 20 years ago, and you ought to do the same thing, brackets in an entirely different world with an entirely different approach. And also, it's not self congratulatory, which, you know, most of them are afraid: Oh, and then in the third year, we sold the business for 18 billion zillion continuing counting and stuff. So, yeah, they will sort of had to amalved some of that. It's really heartfelt, because, you know, we will see lots of books, and we grown off, you know, so but it feels like it's about, for me, it's about it could be that you're stuck at five. You know what that thing when you're the reluctant entrepreneur who suddenly suddenly you employ people, how did that happen? It could be that you're stuck at 15. And it's like: Oh, we're doing really well on quite deep voice. I've nearly got a board and then: Oh, my God, the next three, three recruitments all going to be non fee earners. That's no oh my God. So it feels like it's it's relevant 5 to 25 people that right. Is that fair to say?
Gareth Healey 04:31
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, a lot of the book is will maybe come on to and touch upon is is about targeting it's about my target market is, is certainly it's not startups, it's not freelancers, it probably is around the 5 to 15. Yes, I think you're spot on books. I mean, said that as the book itself makes the point in other ways in terms of targeting clients just because you're targeting a certain section of an audience.
Robert Craven 04:59
But I think that applies right the way through. And I think it's a, it's a book that could be written for accountants or architects or cut and paste, obviously, to put it right. But it's about about fundamental principles, which I adore, because everyone knows I'd bang on endlessly about marketing one on one being about segmentation. And yeah, and that's, that's the, I guess for me, if there's a big takeaway from the book, it's like, you have to stand for nothing, you stand for nothing. But if you stand for something, then you've got you've got a flag to work behind. And people recognise you as being different from the rest. And, I mean, both of you and I, people always go on about how do I, you know, how do I stand out? How do I stand out? How do I make myself different from the rest? Because after all, we're all we're all the same. We all do the same stuff at the same price. And it's kind of like it's kind of like idiots, you know, it's like, it's like, the beignets, you know, from the outside and you obviously see it now your agency owner turned, turned what have you turned turned consultant around around poacher turned gamekeeper. But but from the outside the world is so beige. Every single agency employs similar people at similar salaries using similar software and similar site hardware, in order to sell similar products and similar services to similar people at similar prices. You know, every bloody website, we did a piece of research on 200 websites, and every one is identical. It's all about award winning, data driven, you know, I mean, it's like, it's, it's not unique to be data driven. You are a digital agency, after all, we would expect you to be driven by the data. What makes us different is our obsession with customer service. Look at our awards. Look who we've worked with, you know, it's like it really now I apologise to anyone listening or watching who I've just named their website, but you know, that my question and I think your book answers, why should people bother to buy from me when they can buy from the competition?
Gareth Healey 07:14
Absolutely, yeah. No, that's, that's great. Well, and that's, that's what the book is about, really, it's about not criticising the people that might be in that sphere of sameness. You know, as you know, I mean, read it, I sort of have this avatar of a, what I call a standstill agency. And there's there's a purely fictional agency called treadmill and an owner called Adrian. So there's a character here purely fiction made up.
Robert Craven 07:43
I think there's a lot of I think there's a lot of people who you speak to, after reading the book, who probably said to you: Gareth, was Adrian based on me, because I've seen you and I have seen so many Adrians running so many treadmill? And, and as you as you say, in the book: That's okay, if you just want to, if you just want a lifestyle business, taking 50,000 quid a year, have a couple of people working with you do some n+ice business. Enjoy the piece. That's cool. You know, I've got no, I've got no problem with that. In fact, I'd much rather someone said: You know what, I want this to coin 50,000 quid because I know that my wife also works and my husband also works or whatever it is. And that's more than enough. All we want to do is make sure that grows at 10-15% per year, year on year. I have no problem with that. I think the problem I have is every agency owner I talked to has a three year plan to exit for 10 million or 5 million. And yeah, they're running treadmill. So so can you can you just talk talk through how someone who's got stuck does use that word a lot. How someone who's got stuck can rejigged the business because you're not talking about closing down and sacking everyone you're just talking about about it's like the right notes in the wrong order. It's like guys just get get sorted so that so that you know you're everything's pushing in the right direction. So just just talk us through the kind of the the ology of the book.
Gareth Healey 09:27
Yeah, that's great. I mean, we've certainly as you rightly point out there Robert, you know that I'm absolutely 100% behind you in the term in terms of if there's people out but there are people out there that just wants to run you know, a decent business and want to get a lifestyle decent lifestyle from and enjoy it. I'm absolutely 100% behind you and them in doing that not everybody should work needs to wants to grow into my agency was at one point 12 million quid 175 people and that's in a vastly different business lot more stress. Some and for some very enjoyable and for some very rewarding financially, as well as in terms of running the business, but for others would be, you know, and I'm so absolutely totally behind in that. But the book itself, if I had to sort of summarise or when people asked me to summarise the book, you can you could summarise this book actually in one word. And it's focused every element of that in the model of the world. I'm sure we haven't got time to go through it today, sadly, but it's as you know, it's there's an acrostic model. I used to think it was called an acronym, and it's an acrostic. It's roadmap. So there's an hour the seven steps ROA, beginning with us, we've got time to go through it today. But each of those seven steps, ultimately you can boil it down to focusing, it's bringing more focus to the business. So it's focusing your mind reset is the first one is the art is mastering your mindset is focusing the mind on what do I want to achieve here? Do I want to get to that 10 million exit really? Or am I just happy running a smaller business. And then there's this focusing on the clients that you want to attract, which is your point earlier, marketing 101 is having a target market of some sorts, don't necessarily have to be an industry niche, you're targeting marketing for dentists or whatever, that's fine if you want to do that. But you know, it doesn't end if some people misconstrue that that point has been something that that you know, the niching is something you have to go absolutely, totally narrow on in an industry. But having a target market is is imperative. That's focus having a having a speciality a skill that, you know, I'm sort of dead against this full service mentality when people think they can provide numeracy the, the digital sphere, so complex, and just gets more complex every single minute, probably second, the fact the end of the idea that somebody in a small business can can embrace all of it and provide all of it to a circle is just ridiculous to me, even though those people are invariably very clever and capable of embracing a lot of it and understanding the digital marketing techniques are can they can they provide an excellent service in every single channel? I don't think so. So, you know, though, that is about trying to encourage people to focus and it's ultimately the, I guess it's the is it the Peter Drucker quote, around strategy and strategy is as much about a more about what you don't do is what you do do. So that's, that's the sort of key message behind the book really, and then if people can read the book and in that, whether in their failure in that standstill mode or not, or whether they just feel as if they, you know, they want to learn something I want to I want to sort of take one aspect of the book and use if something just clicks and inspires them in one way, you know, that the book would be for me worth, you know, would be worth writing because if it just inspires them to think: Yeah, I need to focus down in more in that area, then that's, that's why...
Robert Craven 13:04
I think as anyone who's written a book knows not everyone who buys or is given the book reads every single page I think most people get to about page 10 and then phone you up and say: Look, can you just explain it to me properly rather than me have to read it. But I'd still like you to do just differentiate the difference between the standstill agency which I think we kind of know, maybe just can you just drill down standstill versus stand out because then I think if we can compare the two and I know in the book there's the chart, if you can compare the two then then you can start joining the dots are saying: Ah, so for stand if a if a standstill agency is not focused than a standard agencies focused are so Gareth is telling us to go on that journey there so can you just explain the difference between standstill and standout?
Gareth Healey 14:00
Yeah, absolutely. That's I mean that the what sits behind is absolute the focus piece so something that as you rightly said there and summarised, Robert, you know, the standstill agencies tend to be on focused on still agency and agency owners hyperfocus. That it's kept particularly I make no apologies to anybody for keeping this standstill stands that stand out quite loose. It's a matter of interpretation because ultimately what stands out to some people is not stand out to others you know, we can't all become the best agency in the country in but Manchester in wherever we are or the world it's all a matter and equally not all stands still agencies you know some people are standing still at 5 million quid turnover there's a standard still at 200 grand. But nevertheless that but the principles are the behind standstill as you know the set the mindset of people, people need to focus I find often standstill agency owners are thinking about something else. They usually thinking about a side hustle, you know, doing a SAS startup. When I get out of this thing, you know that I'm doing now with an agency that I'm going to do something else. And so often people don't know what that something else is. You know, I often said, What what are you actually going to do? Well, I don't know yet. But I'm going to and I think there's a grasses green greener mentality to standstill, people, which is totally changeable. It's not not endemic or absolutely ingrained. But it's people think there's actually, the grass isn't greener out there. You know, digital agencies, agencies, in general are hard to run hard to grow. But so it sells every other business out there as you your experience, Robert, in terms of hospitality, and catering, you know, that wow, those are those are businesses.
Robert Craven 15:54
I reckon, I reckon there's a two by two matrix by there is which I wish I created at some point in time to try and to point try and point out, you know, is it complicated? Or is it rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat? And is it complex? Or is it a same number of repeatable operating systems? And the answer is, it's, it's repeatable. So in this two by two matrix, is this bottom left hand corner, top right hand corner is nuclear power station, okay. We landed nuclear power station, but I'm not for a minute saying that it's easy. And that people find it easy, because it's about people, you know, and like, people get COVID or they get all their partners, or whatever it is, and your clients, the people on your staff or people and it's and it's not a SAS product. So that's the main reason I think it's so it's so hard. But yeah, it's it's a business, which is doing an awful lot of stuff very, very quickly with lots of moving parts. And of course, it's wonderfully exciting moving outside world, you know, wherever you go away for a week and come back. Everything's, everything's just moved just a little bit like: Tell me what's happened here? Oh, yeah. Google has just announced. Oh, yeah, the clocks, everything just moves. It's like, everything's in the swing. It's like you go into a room? And if, but it's not quite the same as it was before, but you can't quite work out what's changed. And that's very, very scary.
Gareth Healey 17:24
Yeah. It's absolute scary. It's fact of life in digital agencies, as people listening to this will know, but I think, you know, in terms of, you know, this standard standstill standard dynamic, you know, the standstill people are people that that that moan about that, that get frustrated. But I think the stand out people that people embrace it, and people enjoy it. People say that, that, you know, as I've come to, maybe in my own agency career as running a business, I didn't fully appreciate this. But no, I didn't. But actually, when now you're out of it, you realise it's to the cotton thrust of the and the changes and the dynamism of the industry is is what it makes it exciting. So that, again, the standout mentality.
Robert Craven 18:11
It also goes back to what you were saying before, which is about about mentality and mental fitness. Because if you do dear old Adrian, if you see everything is a challenge and a problem or an issue, and: Oh my god, look what they've done now, you know, you will, you will get ground ground into the dirt. Because that, you know, your job is to solve problems, you know, and there's a couple of things we've got. So a couple of sort of one liners for me, which are, one was like your job is to solve is to solve problems. You like: Oh, yeah, of course, I'm running the business. My job is not for everything to be nice and smooth, is to go in and say, what's the next problem we got to deal with? Come on, put it in front of me. Okay, what are the options? What are the issues? Okay, I'm saying we go to the left. Next, give me another problem. Let's deal with it. And I think the other thing is, it's about recognising that it is a game, you know, that it's not in a way. I mean, I don't know if you agree, in a way, it's not real. It's not my identity. You know, at six o'clock, I walk out of the office, and I have my family and I have to dark and I have my guitars or whatever it is. But but the business is a game. Where if you understand what the rules are, and you decided what rules you play by, yeah, then then you can enjoy it. Because you know that if you put your prices up too much that you'll you'll get kicked back. And if you reduce your prices, you'll become very busy and unprofitable. But it's just understanding what the rules are. And I think one of the things that does is it kind of without being formulaic about it, it's just saying this is this is this, if you do this, this will work for you, you know, so can we talk a bit more about the standout agents is what are they I mean, how do you know when you walk into an agency do you go this is lovely because every agency you walk into unfortunately got beanbags and ping pong tables and, and some funky words on the wall. So that's that's not what a stand out agency is because everyone does that. So what is what is the standout agency?
Gareth Healey 20:19
There's there's two sides to it. For me, I think the standard agency is from the I guess this is the agency owner or owners, they have a mentality which says that they always want to improve. So so they want to improve whatever they do, whatever, whether this is running the business, this is dealing with people, managing people in the business or whether it's what they say to clients or how they generate new business, they have this sort of, is it Kaizen the Japanese sort of mentality of of always wanting to improve and then even if it's in small steps, not necessarily great leaps, you know, we want to get better and we don't settle for for for the mediocre and I think that's what step sets out a standout agency from a standstill agency, I think standstill agencies. This is gonna sound may sound dangerous, sounding terrible. But there's a lot of agencies out there, I think the key issue is is laziness. Actually, and and I don't mean that to be me totally incendiary. What I mean is I think that they fall into a trap standstill agency owners of the market, there's a huge demand for a for digital services out there. And it's just exploded actually in the last COVID partner in the pandemic year or years. So I think it's very easy for people to come into this industry, it's incredibly easy to set up an agency to do it in hours, you don't need any money. We've all got laptops anyway. So we've got the kit to a degree. And people come into it thinking you know, this is this is easy will join the throng of all the agencies out there, or your website I mentioned earlier. And when some clients in the reality is they do because they can see that there could be a client, there could be a client. And this they start a business and I have immense respect for that any business owner starting a business, whether it whatever industry is in any business person starting a business for me is deserves respect and credit for it. But I think where the standard agency owners, they don't just start and join the throng. They say, well, we don't have to be completely unique here. You know, uniqueness. As as I talk about in the book, the sort of USP, the old USP unique selling point, acronym was created for, you know, TV and in America in the, in the 60s, or whatever it was, when when there wasn't a lot of, you know, as many products out there and sent, there was a lot of marketing a product out there, it's very hard to be unique. Now, as soon as you think, you know, unique, you Google it and realise, or someone else is doing that in Peru or wherever it might be. I'm not unique, so but to be different to have a different different points of differentiation, not just joining the throngs of having an agency dog, as you mentioned, and you know, we do this and we do that, you know, it's just having little things.
Robert Craven 23:11
And the funny thing is that agency owners kind of get that, if you say, which restaurant do you like or club do you like or what doesn't matter what it is which delicatessen do you like? And they'll know and they'll say: Oh, we like this delicatessen because it has Italian food brackets, not unique. But they have this amazing to cashier bread that they they make in the ovens at the back are unique because that's the only person that street doing it. And what I really like about it is undress the owner recognises me and he always gives me a little bottle of his own olive oil from his parents house. Now, none of those are absolutes in terms of uniqueness. But the the combination means that when you arrive in that deli, or it could have been a restaurant and it could have been any anything hardware store,you go: Oh, I'm in the right place. This is this is my this is my place. This is where I want this is a place that's going to look after me. So the same thing applies to digital agency, the way in which they answer the phone the way in which they send emails, the way in which they treat me how quickly they respond. Do they use explainer videos? Do they talk about price? Do they talk about the downside of what might not happen? Or are they giving us this all this sort of: Oh, we can triple your turnover rooms three months blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and it's an experience, you know, and and we like having nice experiences, you know, maybe b2b, but I still like doing business with people. I like you know, I like I like liking my accountant. I like liking my lawyer. I like to think that they are a bit like me, they think like me, so they're like understand me, I don't want to work with an automaton, you know?
Gareth Healey 25:03
Yeah, I think I think that's a great point and one that when you've, if you can find those or identify those little differences is clearly a very important to get that message out there. And that and all those, the difference tell us about in the deli there just to use that example, you know that that is in itself an aspect of marketing, isn't it, it's not a, it's not an ad campaign or PPC investment, but it's marketing. And it's because it's, it's using a little gift and the olive oil, as you mentioned, to, to engage people. And I think it leads me on to sort of just to touch upon the seventh principle for me, the P is around profile, it's around building a brand of my model. And, and so many agencies are, well, the standout agencies focus on not just new business and generating leads, they do that they need to do that, of course, but they focus on building the brand as well and communicating to not just clients. But increasingly, of course, importantly to people. Because clients have always had a choice of who to work with, people have now got that choice, it would seem in the market, to literally choose who they work with in terms of a digital agency. So the brand is going to be the standout guys, the guys who are invested in the brand and invested in getting those message little messages about what they do out there in in different ways, not just throwing the website open, having the picture of a dog and saying it's the HR director, and we grey, you know, that's, I think that the mountain invasion that comes through from not just the agency, but also from the personal brand, I believe, of the agency owner, which, again, we're talking about mistakes that the agencies make, I certainly made this mistake, during my career of not not not giving much credence to promoting my own personal brand, when I was running the agency, it was all about using the terms like you know, the wheel and the word do shoe, you know, we were all sort of hiding our lights at that stage where I was we let the work do the talking here. You know, we're all one team, it's not just about one person. And I think the personal brand I've learned or realised so, so important, the personal brand, or brands of the industry are very important to get them out there so that they're known. And so that they attract both clients and people, or at least engage them so that they can use they make a connection and then start to talk to the agency about a job or about a project or a brief or a contract as a client. So it's all a little aspects of marketing that an agency's as hopefully, the agency has aspect to generally so poor at marketing themselves. You know that? That's just a very base level, actually. But the best agency is the standard agencies are just marketing machines and their own right, and they find the time, you know, again, so as to support mark themselves. You asked them a question, I asked them, I've got a why, but we just haven't got the time, you know, we're busy this visit. But the standard agent says find the time they find that they need the time because they recognise how important it is.
Robert Craven 28:14
So is it like the standstill agencies are like kind of white belts for want of a better phrase. And the understand outs are like black belts and that there's there's a journey or they're Yeah, different stages that you go in. And you could be a black belt with 15 people, you could be a white belt with 15. I've been to lots of 15 person agencies. And you're surprised they actually keep the doors open because they're so disorganised. And I've been to five person agencies, which are just electrifying. So yes, it's not about the number. Yeah. So that is that that's how you see it.
Gareth Healey 28:53
That's a great way of, yeah, that's a great way of describing it and but it's your how we could extend that mental model there? I'm not sure but it is, your black belt is your right to say it doesn't matter. It doesn't it's not dedicated by sight or dictated to by size. It's dictated if anything to my attitude, I think it's the attitude of you know, we work our way up to black belt by by incremental small changes improvements every day, and whatever we do, you know, if we can onboard clients better, then then a lot of improve the agency. So we do and it's the starts with resets with the mindset purposely because you've got to have that mindset of improvement. At the top of the eight you know, whether you're a five person or a 15 person, if the agency owner, or owners doesn't have that desire and my mindset then it's not going to work.
Robert Craven 29:50
The first building block. Because a question if there will be people listening. It's really really hard work. Now Gareth keeps mentioning Stan stone. can see it's a bit, it's a bit Wow, that that, Adrian Well, you know, it's kind of I guess there are some stuff stuff that I do. So how do you how do you change the direction of the vehicle? What what what do people do? Obviously they buy the book. Yeah. But But is it? Do they have to go are a D and A P or commercials are a P or I mean, what's the?
Gareth Healey 30:28
What's the sort of process? No, sure. It is, it starts its art, its roadmap starts with, it starts with reset master mindset, that's, that's the starting point. After that, it can be a journey that you take, I think it's important to start with that, that that piece, that's why it's the first one. But the rest of it can be taken in order of roadmap or it can be taken in, you know, choose the the area of weakness that you think will you know, we'll give you the most bang for buck, if you improve on that particular aspect. Choose the chat to it's quite our I've been told, I like to think it's quite an easy read. And you know, habits as you say, not everybody I know loads of books a lot, I'd love to read them off cover to cover you don't so but skim through, pick the one after mindset the most engages our interests you I think you've got the most opportunity to improve on and yeah, pick and start with that. And so it's quite flexible in that sense. I don't think any of us could choose an absolute cast iron roadmap for somebody to be because we're all you know, it's not just dedicated dictators, who is you know, by by numbers of people we might it depends on the client mix depends on the situation you're in, in terms of you know, so many variables isn't even running, particularly people Business Summit, so many variables in running any business, people service based business, lots of variables. So I don't think we can prescribe a to b. But it's, it's it's a roadmap, it's a sort of vision.
Robert Craven 32:02
So a couple of quickfire questions, because time is getting a bit tight. What, what drives you mad about some of the agencies you see at the moment?
Gareth Healey 32:20
I mean, that's what drives me mad. There's so many things isn't , I have to say you won't be given there's so many things impressed me about agencies, you know, people that are so enthusiastic, so knowledgeable, technically, about these very, very, you know, the sort of technical, the challenges and the channels and the ads, and they're just very complex subjects that people just get, and web development and coding is all way beyond me. And I'm a businessman, rather than, rather than a techie. So there's so many positives, what what drives me mad, but I think, you know, thinking it's easy, really thinking it's easy to grow the business thinking there's going to be that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow trundling along for two or three years, and on a decent salary and a decent remuneration for them as a business for employing people, as you mentioned at the start, but then saying: Well, where are we going, what we're going to what we're going to send for itself a 10 million. And no, no, you're not, not unless you do something radically different. You might sell your mind. But it won't be 10. And it won't, it won't be Monaco yacht territory, and it won't, and when you get there, we're going to do I don't know, there's something else what what you're good at this. So that that frustrates the hell out of me talked about saying the same things everybody else. And I think but I think that the big thing for me, there's a third thing is is distraction, people that are in don't maintain this, you know, focus, I don't know why it's easy to do, but people in agencies I meet and talk to and I've worked with, and worked for the you know, they're very easily distracted and the shiny object syndrome of well, we'll do that and then we'll go over there now we'll do this I mean, we've got you know, we've established a little bit of a sort of foothold there in this type of client. But actually now we're gonna work with this sports brand here because it because we: No, let's try and get further into deeper into that type of client or let's get more knowledge about YouTube ads, rather than just trying to add something else in there. So it's an I understood it might frustrate me, but I do understand it I understand the that you know, that often it's the entrepreneurial spirit of people often it's the you know, the one thing because they they're so they can't control or they struggle to control client demands. Controlling where you go and what you do for the for the agency and making decisions on doing other things is an element of control. So I totally get it but it does frustrate me for not for me, but but for them. Let us say, you know, let's, if you can focus down and get some consistency behind what you do and get a rhythm to doing it. That's the key for me to grow.
Robert Craven 35:09
Because that's what that's where the money is rinse and repeat. Yeah, not in not in, try something brand new. And yeah. I mean, it's great fun, and it's really good. It's really good in your gut, because you may or may not win and all that stuff. But it's disastrous for the business. And it's, you know, bottom right hand, bottom right hand corner of the ANSOFF matrix, if no one knows what the answer is, maitre d is don't look at it right now. There's about it's about that, we always go down to that bottom right hand corner of shiny objects, where we think they have loads of money. And the line is normally where we are now, with our existing customers for our existing products. We're doing more deeper, better, more effective, especially the agency.
Gareth Healey 35:50
Yeah. I like to talk to people where I can feel if they're, if they're receptive to, you know, to have that their mindset change of let's let's make some let's get this business. So it's making some decent money in itself and decent money for you, as directors. And let's not be happy with that. But let's get it to that stage before we start thinking about exits, and 10 million quid and yachts, because one of the things you know, maths, I've met people that are 12 months, 18 months in, so the business with maybe employee, two or three people or they're employing great, fabulous, but then I met them and said: Well, what's the what's the plan? Well, we're going to sell for x in three years. And as of now, this is not the business. You know, this is not the sort of unicorn SAS business. It's not that that's easy to do by any stretch of the imagination, but you stand the chance, if you've got an investment, and you've got a product and you can maybe but the service business, you know that that's probably not going to happen. So let's let's enjoy it. And let's let's focus on getting the money. As we're running it and enjoying it, rather than waiting for something comes at the end and somebody gets a pretty proach and you are approached by a number of people to acquire greatness. That's the that's the bonus at the end, that sort of pot of gold or the the, you know, the the bonus rather than the objective?
Robert Craven 37:18
Absolutely, you've got what I call a lot of classy tools in the book. Somebody created some you've adapted, some you've been using, it's wondering of all the tools you've got in in this toolkit. which one or ones might be the ones you're most proud of?
Gareth Healey 37:39
Yeah, good question. classic, classic tools. There's certainly some adaptation. And there's certainly some usage of other people's models that are famous and utilised everywhere, because they're in there because not for the sake of copying them just because I think they work and they're a good sort of creative, there's a couple of standout, actually I've got, I've got the whole sort of, in my chapter five and objective, which is about having a purpose, you know, having a purpose, I guess the Simon Sinek sort of, not start with why but but in terms of get into a position where you have something that you know, you have as a mission, beyond that 10 million sales, something to engage something to engage people, you know, a people business, or a people business that's trying to train to attract talented, in demand people away from SAS companies, often from in house teams into our little agency, and particularly younger people than me these days. It's not just about salary, it's about their other perks, that helps, but it's about what we're trying to achieve here. So finding that purpose I use, I use this sort of admission about purpose and values, my tried and tested model, but I've put it into what I call a strategic compass, which is a sort of model to try to just identify the roles because they're often though I've struggled for years with the differences of what the what's the difference between a mission or purpose and all that stuff. And in this, if anybody reads the book, I'm not saying: Hey, I've got the answer. I'm saying: I've articulated in a way I understand it now. And, and I've had some great feedback on that. And particularly for embarrassing my name and him as a chopper I know very well, and he's a very mission, purpose value stuff is very important to him. He's always sort of spent his career talking about that. And he said to me, when he read, it's one of the best ways it's been articulated. So that was high praise from him. There's also as you mentioned, when we're speaking earlier, actually one of the other on advantage which is communicating your value proposition in a way that isn't just hey, we're another digital agency. We do PPC coming back from us. at articulating the value proposition, there's a model there, which I don't think I gave a name. I wish I should have given it a name, but I didn't. But there's a nine box model for helping you to articulate your clarify and articulate your proposition. So there's that that people have found out you.
Robert Craven 40:20
Good, and I think it's something I bang on about all the time is blinking. Heck is your value proposition?
Gareth Healey 40:30
That particular one, I've had some great feedback on that one as well. And people sort of talked to me about you know, them finding it useful, which is the best thing about you and I need to tell you, you've got this written loads of books, Robert books, one of the nice things about it's not about the selling books, it's about people coming back to how it was really useful that that bit and that that book that you if they didn't find any of the rest of it useful, that's fine, but if they found that useful, that's quite sort of makes you makes me as the author feel feel good and well run as well.
Robert Craven 41:00
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think the it's the it's the reviews from people you don't know are more valuable than the reviews from people who do now because often you think people you do know just blowing smoke up your your backside, you know, whereas if someone you've never met before, writes a review or something you get a blimey. So someone picked it up not knowing who I am: Yeah, this looks interesting. And they went: Oh, yes, this is really interesting. Isn't that that? That's, that's really great. I love that. Final question really is, are a couple of kind of gold nuggets or, or or sayings that you you often say to people or one liners that you kind of think you're you wish people had tattooed on their foreheads?
Gareth Healey 41:47
Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not sure the sayings. But there's that my book is the roadmap, the seven principles. The final three chapters is our three different chapters on three aspects. And the three things are what I call the standout agency owner superpowers. I've talked about them to a degree already but but their focus so that the you know, it's this piece of art, let's focus on what we're what we are doing, but also what we're not doing, and making sure that we agree on that. So for now, and have a focus is a Superman number one. Number two is planning is having a realistic plan that has some actions behind it and is something more deep, not not Warren Piece, but something more detailed, and just yeah, we're gonna sell for x in y years. And this is the plan is to build number two, Superman number three is perhaps the toughest one of all is consistency is execution is is still is trying to steal yourself to play down or avoid this shiny object stuff and just continue to deliver and execute and rinse and repeat, as you said, so there's those, that's what it ends on that sort of
Robert Craven 43:04
lovely, perfect, it's a perfect place to finish because it is about one of the interesting things when you read the book is it's a lot of it's about kind of the planning, preparation and getting everything ready. And you're thinking hang on he's and then you come in in the last last part of the three chapters, actually. And this is how you did it. Yes, and execution because this is all about execution. Garrett, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you. People don't know that a little bit of technical difficulty getting here, but we've succeeded with that. And yes, everyone go out and get the book at the end. There'll be links and things to Gareth and and to the book. And it's been an absolute pleasure to interview. Thank you very much indeed.
Gareth Healey 43:49
Thanks, Robert. Always good to speak to you. And thank you for for giving me the opportunity just to talk about it a bit more and yeah, really nice talking to you again.
Robert Craven 43:56
Brilliant. Thank you very much indeed.