How To Build A Million Dollar Marketing Agency In 1 Year - Carrie Rose (Rise at Seven)
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Oh, by the way, before we get into this episode, I would love to tell you a little bit about Life Notes. Now, Life Notes is a weekly-ish email that I send completely for free to my subscribers, and it contains my notes from life. So notes from books that I've read, podcasts I'm listening to, conversations I'm having, and experiences I'm having in work and in life. And around once a week, I write these up and share them in an email with my subscribers. So if you would like to get an email from me that contains the stuff that I'm learning, almost in real time as I'm learning it, you might like to subscribe. There is a link down in the show notes or in the video description.

Hey friends and welcome back to Deep Dive, the weekly podcast where every week it's my immense privilege to sit down with academics and authors and creators and entrepreneurs and other inspiring people and we find out how they got to where they are and the strategies and tools we can learn from them to help us build a life that we love. Carrie Rose is the 29-year-old co-founder and CEO of the creative agency Rise at Seven. Working with some of the biggest brands in the world including ASOS and PlayStation, the company's grown to over

$9 million and now Carrie's expanding the company to the US as well. One time I saw someone and they was like, what are you doing? I thought I own my own business and they was like, oh amazing. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I've got an office in New York. I've got this and that. What? Now this conversation with Carrie completely blew my mind because she is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to sales and marketing and public relations, PR stuff in particular, and a bunch of cool things that she's learned around advertising and marketing as she's been growing her business.

If we were running Missguided's marketing strategy, this is what we would do. So often we have to come up with PR ideas, social ideas, strategies of how we can convert customers better than they are currently and things like that. Carrie is also a champion for diversity and inclusion in the workplace. And she's made it a priority to create a company culture that uplifts and values all voices.

We also talk a little bit about teenage Carrie and the disadvantages and struggles that she faced earlier in life, growing up in a disadvantaged area and dealing with grief from a very young age, and how all of that stuff played a role in her journey to becoming the CEO and co-founder that she is today. I live in a cancer state all my life, so people didn't go to uni where I was from. And I made it, and I did it, and I proved everyone wrong. He would just be so proud. So, so proud. Don't get me emotional. He would just be so proud. And I think it's just because he knows how resilient I am.

Oh my God, why am I crying? What the hell? Before we get into this episode, I've got a very quick announcement, which is that I'm launching a Telegram community for the podcast. Now, I'm going to be honest. Initially, the reason for starting this podcast was quite a selfish one in that I wanted to learn from cool and interesting people and apply their insights to my own life. And it's just generally easier to hang out with people if you invite them onto your podcast rather than if you just want to have a chat with

them. But over the last 18 months of running this podcast, it's grown ridiculously fast. And actually, we've had so many messages and YouTube comments and emails and Instagram DMs and stuff from people talking about how much value that you guys have gotten from the episodes as well. And so we're planning to change direction a little bit in that instead of me just treating these conversations as a personal therapy session with the guests, which we might still do a little bit of, I actually want to learn more about you guys who are listening to the podcast or watching the podcast and understand what are the things that you would like to see from the podcast.

And I really want to better understand what challenges you're going through, what struggles you're going through, so that we can then kind of tailor the guests and tailor the questions to that. So that's why we're starting up this completely free Telegram community. If you hit the link in the show notes or in the video description, wherever you're watching or listening to this, you'll be able to sign up completely for free. It's always going to be free. You will never have to pay.

pay a penny. The group is called the Deep Divers, which I think is kind of funny. And it's basically a group where I'll be posting some of the behind the scenes stuff from the podcast. But also as we get new guests coming on, I'll be asking in that group if you guys have any specific questions for the guest so that can help inform the direction of the interview. I'm also going to be posting a few polls and questionnaires and surveys in that group. So if you're interested in kind of sharing more about you and about your life,

then you can do it through that group. And then again, that'll just help us figure out how do we best make this podcast as value add for you guys as possible. And we're also gonna be using the Telegram group to give away some freebies. Like for example, often authors on the podcast will come and they'll gift us like 50 of their books, for example. I don't need 50 copies of an author's book, but it's the sort of thing that we can absolutely send to people around the world completely for free. Anyway, if that sounds good and you'd like to join the community, then do hit the link in the podcast show notes or in the video description, wherever you're seeing this or listening to this. And now let's get on with the episode.

All right, Carrie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. So much to dig into with your story. I wonder if we can start with what were things like when you were in school? Because I guess kind of starting with there often kind of paints an interesting picture of how people grow on to become entrepreneurs. Sure. I was the typical loud, I wouldn't say naughty kid, but I would say cheeky.

So I didn't really do anything like really naughty, but I was the class clown, like lots of friends, very popular, you know, like having fun and all that sort of thing. But I was always that kid at school that was quite, I guess, people called me lucky because I never revised. I never really kind of read books or studied or did my homework, but I always got really good grades.

So teachers hated me for it, which is really weird. I remember the day that I collected my GCSEs, my English teacher threw the envelope at me and she was like, how the hell have you done that? And I was like, I opened it and I got like an A. And I was like, I don't know. So I was quite lucky, but I do think it was just, I was often told by my teachers I was a very good blagger.

And I used to think that was an offensive thing, but I actually took it as a compliment because I was able to tell really good stories through English or maths or whatever it was. So yeah, I was kind of like quite cheeky at school, got in a bit of trouble, I guess, just by kind of like taking a lot of friends on the journey with me and, you know, not really focusing on class, but I ended up doing quite well grades-wise. So I think that was a lucky thing.

So if, let's say, 16-year-old Carrie could have seen you now, would she have been like surprised at kind of you becoming an entrepreneur? Or would it have been like, oh, of course that was going to happen? A hundred percent. I think she would have been so surprised. I think like people thought I would more than likely, I don't know, not like down talking working as a waitress all my life, but like just kind of,

I was more about my friends than actual education or career or anything like that. It was all about having fun. And so I think, yeah, looking back, people would be surprised. And actually they are. Like I have a lot of teachers that I, you know, when you see a teacher in Tesco and they're like, hello, I haven't seen you for a while. And one time I saw someone and they was like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, I own my own business. And they was like, oh, amazing. And when I started describing it, they went, oh, you do really well. Like, yeah, yeah. I've got an office in New York. I've got this and that. What? What?

So that was like, yeah, I think if we look back and think like myself when I was 16 or myself, you know, or teachers or anything. Yeah, I think they'll be very surprised at where I'm at right now. Oh, fantastic. That's very refreshing to hear. Like I've interviewed a bunch of entrepreneurs on the podcast and like I'd say 95% of them were like hustling, selling shit when they were younger or like building websites or like doing business from the age of 13. Yeah. And so it's unusual to speak to someone for whom that would have been a complete surprise. Yeah. Yeah.

So we'll definitely talk about how that kind of changed along the way. So it sounds like in school, you were the popular one. You managed to kind of blag your way into good grades, if I can kind of phrase it in those terms. And then you decided to go to university. Yeah. Well, funny enough. So my family, where I come from, we're not very wealthy. No one went to university. To be honest, I didn't even know what university was. I

I remember getting really good grades and went and doing A-levels. And I didn't at the time knew what I wanted to do. So I remember going to my mom and saying, "Mom, I don't really know what to do." And she said, "Okay, well, when you don't know what to do, you need to just spread it out. Go study business, go study a language." So what I studied was business, Spanish, media, 'cause I like to be creative.

And psychology, you know, wide variety of subjects. Went to college and studied that. Ended up getting really good grades again. So I got like A, B, B, something like that. And I remember my teacher pulling me aside and saying, Carrie, what are you going to do now? I was like, I don't know.

What do I do? I apply for a job. So she was like, if you thought about uni, I was like, what's uni? I didn't even know what it was. Like none of our family had been to uni. No one spoke to me about uni. And I was like, well, you've got really good grades to get into one of the top universities. You know, Leeds University was always one that I looked at at the time. And there's like,

you should apply. I was like, how do I apply? So she actually stayed with me till like 10pm kind of thing. We wrote these, I don't know what it was called at the time, but like a, you know, like a cover letter kind of thing. Applied for uni and I got in, I got into the top uni. So yeah, I remember going home and saying to my mum, mum,

I think I'm going to go to uni. She was like, what? You can't go to uni. You can't look after yourself. Because I was a bit of like messy room kid, you know, like that type of kid. And yeah, I packed my bags and moved to Leeds and I never went back. Nice. So as you can see, it was very much like unplanned whirlwind. And that's still what I'm like today. Excellent.

What was the rest of your friends like? Were they all going to uni or was it like an unusual thing for your friendship group? Yeah, quite unusual. I was like a typical kind of kid that had a lot of friends that maybe fell pregnant at a young age, probably came from council. I lived in a council estate all my life. So people didn't go to uni where I was from. And if you did, you was usually part of like a rich family, if that makes sense. So I did have one friend that went to uni, but she was a couple of years younger than me. So she kind of went after me. And actually I influenced her to do that.

but most of her friends didn't. So it was quite a scary thing for me to do. But one thing I am is extremely confident. And that's definitely part of what my dad drilled into me. I just, I was like, yeah, I can go to uni. I can do that. Like I always believed I can do anything. And that's the mindset I had. Even my, you know, whatever held me back, I can still do it. So yeah, despite friends not really following me on that journey and I went off alone, I was fine with that.

You said your dad drilled it into you. What do you mean? So we're a big family. So I have six sisters. We all start with a letter C. We call ourselves the Kirliga Kardashians. Wild household, as you can imagine. So my dad, obviously, with loads of girls in the house. We're all very different. So some of them have big families with loads of kids. My mum was always really hardworking and that's what inspired me. And I guess I'm the youngest out of the six.

And those, my sisters didn't necessarily end up in successful jobs, didn't really build careers for themselves. And my dad always drilled it into me as a young age. He used to like whisper in my ear when I was like seven, you're different. You're going to be good. You got, you know, stick to it, stick to it. Like stay focused. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do anything.

So he drilled that into me. And even him, so he kind of ran a business himself. He was a bit of an old school farmer. And he ran a business himself to the point where when I used to come home from school, he used to have cash lying around the house and he used to go, right, count it. And that's how I learnt maths.

So like he just kind of gave me the confidence that I could achieve anything, if that makes sense. And he was one that drilled into me. And I don't know why he took a lightning to me specifically as the young baby, because I was daddy's girl. But my mum always said, he stuck to you differently. Like it's like he saw something in you. So, but I think that's what gave me that confidence to go and go get it basically. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like both your parents were pretty supportive then. Yeah.

Yeah, I'd say so. It's quite a drastic, I guess, background because, so obviously he gave me all this confidence and stuff. My dad and mum broke up when I was like, what, 12? But they still stayed friends, which was really nice to see. But then my dad had a sudden heart attack and died. And obviously for me, who was like daddy's girl, that like turned my world upside down. But I think, so obviously this was the time, I was 15. So what would I have been doing? A-levels then. Yeah.

Yeah, it was just before A-levels. Yeah, it was. It was GCSEs. So when I got my good grades and when everyone was like, oh, you should go to A-levels. And I was obviously just a little bit like a whirlwind child of like, what should I do next? But obviously he was that motivation of, yeah, I can do this. So I think that really was like...

The thing that driven me to keep going and, you know, you can achieve anything. And I think when you do have someone like a family member pass or like a dad or like a parent or anything, I think you end up doing it for them rather than for anyone else. So I think that's a big driver, especially when I was younger. Wow. That must have been really tough when you were 15 to cope with that. Oh, yeah. How did you cope with it? What was that like?

I didn't for a long time. I'd never lost anybody. So like, you know when people have like a grandma that's died? I never even had like a grandparent die. So that was like really hard. And especially because it weren't planned. He just had a heart attack and died. So for me, like my dad was my escape. You know, like when the sisters was arguing in the house because someone had stole their clothes or whatever it was. Or I don't know, I was the young baby. I used to run away and go stay at my dad's. So he was my escape.

So I got to a point where I had nowhere to escape to. So I do think a big part of, which we might come on to later, a big part of

me leaving at 17 and going to Leeds and going to uni was me escaping a little bit and I think that has been an interesting trend throughout I guess my career of me like I'm gonna run away and go prove everybody that I can do this kind of thing um but yeah it hit me hard mostly because he was like my rock and my confidence boost and all that sort of thing um but I do think it was a big part that it was like a door opened and said go run through it in a way wow

Yeah, I've been fortunate not to have really lost anyone close to me yet. But I know it's just a matter of time. I mean, it happens to everyone. So I can't really imagine having to go through that at the age of 15. I'll tell you a quick story because it's really interesting. So I remember at school there was this kid called, oh my God, what was his name now? Brandon, I think it was.

and Brandon had lost his mum and dad in a car accident, right? And he became the kid that lost his parents. You know, like he had a label on him without saying it. He just was the kid that lost his parents. And I remember I used to see Brandon in the hallway or in dinner halls and thing and just look at him and feel sorry for him a little bit. Like, shit, that's that kid that lost his parents.

And I remember the day my dad died, I went to school maybe about two weeks later and I remember walking through the hallway and he looked at me, this Brandon, and I knew he was looking at me like the girl that lost her dad. I knew that all of a sudden now I had that unwritten label on me in that way. And it's like we connected, we said hello then. I didn't really speak to him before, but I think you don't expect parents to go. You don't ever. Like I never ever imagined, you just don't think about it. Oh, I never did, especially at 15. Yeah.

So when it happened, it just turned my world upside down. Made me maybe quite lonely, I guess, at the time, because I was this baby that looked, you know, I love my dad and that sort of thing. But then, yeah, it was a very tough time, I guess, for a couple of years. You know, it was going through, I was going through, you know, 15. I don't know really what goes on with hormones and things like that at 15, but it was the peak time of obviously getting my grades and, you know, where am I going to go next and making big decisions as a, you know, a teenager, I guess. Yeah.

Have you got any tips for someone, like if someone's listening to this and they've recently been through like losing a parent or someone close to them, anything that you found helpful to help you get through it? Two things. So one of the things that I did when I was a kid, which is I'm quite grateful for, I didn't know this, but when you're under the age of 16, you actually can get free counselling.

My school recommended it at the time. So they got in touch with my mum and said, by the way, it's like a government thing. Young children who have lost parents go through grieving. You can get free counselling. And it's through the school. So once a week, they come in and sit with your child for an hour and talk through things. And one of the things they talked through, which is quite an interesting concept, it made me realise they basically drew out

like a road of grief and they said this road is like a long it's a long road it's basically it's throughout your whole life you will grief from losing a parent and what they said is at the beginning of the road there's loads of potholes and these potholes are really deep to the point where you know when you drive over a pothole it like stumbles you a little bit but then you keep going well these potholes sometimes you drive over it and you fall in it and you don't come out for months and that's what my counselor taught me like you are going to fall in some of these potholes and you might be there for a week you might be there for two months six months whatever it is

But as you get on this across this road, these puddles get shorter and shorter and they get less. So it just becomes easier to stop tripping you up as much. And that's what grief is. It's not like you're moving on, but it just gets easier, just gets better. And that's one thing that I tried to visualize with people that have lost parents or at least lost people close to them, because grief is one of those things that it does get easier. And at the time you feel like your world's end. But that's the first thing I'd advise. And the second thing is this might sound silly, but write letters.

like communicate, it didn't need to be written letters, but it could be communicating in, I don't know, text messages. So like I still had my dad's mobile number and I would message him when I was a kid sometimes and it never went through, you know, bounce back.

but it was kind of like I was sharing my thoughts at the time and I think yeah especially like lads and boys like they don't necessarily communicate that sort of thing they don't show those emotions so I think find your own way of communicating um but then also find your own way of understanding grief so that would be my two tips oh thank you for sharing they're useful yeah um what do you think your dad would say if he saw how how you are now

He would just be so proud. So, so proud. Don't get me emotional. He would just be so proud. And I think it's just because he knows how resilient I am. Oh my God, why am I crying? What the hell? I never thought, I don't even know. This is amazing. Yeah, he would just be so proud. Also that I kind of went against the odds.

You know, like, council estate kid, big family, loads of kids, no one went to uni. And I made it and I did it and I proved everyone wrong. I say that though, which is weird because it's like, who am I proving? I don't know who I'm proving. Maybe myself. I don't know. But yeah, he'll be very proud. Oh, fantastic. Thank you for sharing all that. I know. I think it's really important, like, with a lot of people's, I guess, like,

especially like, you know, people who are like super successful and they're doing podcasts and stuff. You often just kind of see the highlight reel. Of course you do, yeah. And kind of realizing that there's like, yeah, grief and emotion behind everything. Okay, so you get through your GCSEs. Yes. You get through your A-levels and you decide to go to Leeds. Yes. What did you study? It was actually classes, New Media Communications, basically media, but it was the digital version. It was the first year that...

The media, so when you studied media at uni, it was often things like filmmaking, podcasting, things like that, you know, journalism and stuff. Well, it was the first year when digital started to become a thing. So I was very lucky actually to have spotted it because it was the only course in the whole country that did this. But it was new media, digital channels. So I studied social media. I did things like animation, motion graphics, learned how to use new technology, learned about the internet and safety and security. I did a bit of web development. So very kind of like a technical course, yeah.

which I loved because I kind of could apply, you know, things that I'm excited by, innovation, strategy, that sort of thing, but then also be quite creative as well. Yeah. So at that point, you're studying the subject and like, what are you thinking about what you want to be when you grow up? Still have no idea.

Completely no idea. There was a point where I developed a website, which was the worst website in the world. But I remember thinking, I'm going to start a development agency and I'm going to build websites and make loads of money. And I think it's because I met some kid who came into class one day and he said that he makes websites and he earned himself like 10 grand or something. I'm thinking, that's loads of money. That's what I want to do.

um i ended up paying him like a hundred quid to do my project work and he did it for me and i got really good grade but yeah um i was still unsure at that time exactly what i wanted to do so again figuring it out as i went i guess i have this motto see where the wind blows me and that's what i was doing at the time okay so in three years at university yeah how was that experience overall

I'm wild. Oh my God, this is an interesting story actually. So I started university and I moved into halls as everybody does. But one of the biggest mistakes that I made is I remember thinking I really want to live somewhere nice and make nice friends and have a nice apartment. You know, like be someone I am not. Like I come from a council estate, but I want to live in a nice apartment in Leeds. So there was a certain uni halls that was a bit more on the higher price and

And I'm thinking, that looks nice. I'll just get some jobs to be able to afford it. But that looks like the perfect place to go. So I applied to stay there and I got in, you know, into the halls and I moved into this amazing halls and the beautiful, nicest apartments I've stayed in for a uni hall. Whereas some of the people that I made friends with at uni, they were staying in some really bad places, you know. But one thing I really made a mistake about is I ended up being...

I guess, grouped into halls with some of the richest people in the country. Oh, okay. So culturally, there's a massive clash. Right. I was the standout, you know, councilor state kid surrounded by people with rich families who their parents was paying for their halls. And I was there like working in bars trying to figure out how to pay for it.

That was one of the biggest mistakes I made. But also if I reflect, I learned a lot. I learned about different people and I've never been surrounded by people that, you know, some of their parents were multimillionaires, billionaires. And I was in these halls with these people, lived with them for a year. And it was very difficult because they had different perceptions of money. And, you know, I was there working hard to kind of like fund university, you know, didn't get a penny from parents or anything like that. Whereas they was a little bit different. So

It was interesting kind of time because I guess I felt like I needed to keep up with them and therefore I just worked hard to be able to do that. But I guess after that first year ended, I ended up moving in with some of my friends off my course. But yeah, that was an interesting decision I made. A few months ago, I interviewed a psychology professor who studies luck.

Oh, wow. And he's written books and papers and stuff where he boils down to four things, basically, that lucky people do that unlucky people don't. Yes. And one of those is striking up conversations with people in trains and coffee shops and that kind of thing. Yeah. Because you just never know where it's going to take you. 100%. Yeah. Is that something that sort of carried on in the rest of your life? Yeah, all the time. Yeah. I met someone today in an Uber. It was a taxi driver. He was like, oh, where are you going today? And I said about work and I had a meeting with Amazon and all these sort of things.

And he was like, what do you do? And he ended up being a videographer and we exchanged names and added each other on LinkedIn and someone that I might be able to work with one day. But those don't come about to everyday people. You just got to be able to have the confidence to talk to people and be open-minded and welcoming as well. So I do think because of this kind of like,

I don't know, northerness about me. Maybe I am quite easy to talk to. So that also is a good part of how I get good opportunities is people just feel okay to be able to chat to me in the street or whatever. Yeah. Were you always like this or is that something that you had to develop over time? Always like this.

Yeah. My mom said when I was a kid, she was like, you talk to everybody. She was like, you would just make conversation with people in Tesco, like five-year-old, you know, running around. But I was the type of person that also didn't like to not be in the know. She said you would stay up late. So say if my mom had friends around, you know, for tea and drinks and stuff, and my bedtime was say eight o'clock, she says, you would not go to bed. You would sit, you'd even sit outside the door. So they'd shut the living room door and I would sit listening because I just wanted to sit

hear what adults talked about yeah she was like you were so curious inquisitive confident but you loved being around people so i do think um that was maybe a big part of i guess who i am today yeah let's say you had um a junior team member or something who's like um who admires like your ability to talk to everyone yeah and and they're like carrie how do you how do you do it how do you just strike up a conversation with someone that you've just met

Can you think of any, I guess, strategies or things that you find yourself doing that you could kind of share with this person to be like? Oh, that's a really hard one. You know, when you just do it, it comes natural to you. But I guess if I think how my mind thinks when I see someone, I usually see something that I can identify with. So usually I'll see, I don't know.

I saw someone, a girl the other day on the train and she was on a New Look website and it looked like she worked in marketing and she was writing notes down for marketing. And I basically said, oh, on the train, I was like, do you work at New Look?

She says, "Yeah, yeah." And I said, "Oh, do you know blah, blah, blah?" Because I know someone who works at New Look in the marketing team. So I guess what I tried to do is identify me and them together and see if I could strike a conversation all the time. So I guess it was just spotting something that I can either add value to her day in some way.

So that's one of the things that I can see myself doing at all time. In that context, it's very easy for you to just be on your phone. You're super busy. You probably get tons of emails and messages and stuff. Like what is it that- Look up. Yeah. Prompts you to like actually be like, oh, do you work at New Look? Rather than just like stuck on the phone. I guess maybe I'm quite like nosy, like inquisitive. Like I guess that is the thing about me. Like I do ask a lot of questions. Like I am that type of person. Yeah.

I'm just curious, I think. Even down to kind of like the people in this room and like earlier on, like in the lift and stuff, like the first thing I looked at is like, I want to know who they are, what the name, what do they do? I think that's, I guess it's just a natural part, I guess, of me in a way. Yeah. I mean, it seems like that skill has really served you well. Yeah, I think so. On reflection now. Yeah, I've realized that. So you're doing the six month unpaid internship sort of thing with this Google chap. Yes.

While you were still at uni? Yeah. How are you doing that? To be fair, I think it was when it started to quiet down, you know, in the summer period. It was like coming to the end and then it went summer. So it was during that period. So I was able to manage it absolutely fine. But I also was like, oh no, I need money to be able to afford rent. So I actually ended up working in Wetherspoons at the same time. Oh, nice. You're working in Spoons, doing an unpaid internship at Google. Yeah.

Nice. And you said that you got obsessed with search. Yes. That's a bit random. Yeah, random. I was looking up your agency and it's all like search-based stuff. And I've not come across that adjective before in terms of kind of marketing agencies. Yeah. Because, I mean, I know loads of agencies specialise in performance marketing. Yeah. But none that specialise in search. Yeah. So like where did the obsession with search come from? It's a bit random. Yeah, it is, right? Oh, God. It's interesting, actually. I think it was because one thing I learned is...

with the Google 360 guy, he basically said, if businesses do the video, like add video to their website of their 360 view of their cafe, Google then puts them up on listings when it comes to local search. So if you were still looking for, I don't know, say if you're looking for a certain cafe in London, their chances of getting high up on Google is bigger because they have this video content. So I was like, what? So you can actually influence what comes up on Google. And he's like, yeah. And I was like, that for me, the money-making way.

And I was just obsessed with it in that way. So I remember there was a module that you didn't have to take at uni, but I decided to take it like an extra module. It was for SEO. And SEO didn't understand what it meant, but it meant search engine optimization. And essentially what they did is they, years ago, they taught you how to actually get websites to rank high on Google by doing...

They call it black hat stuff. So black hat is things you shouldn't really be doing to manipulate Google. And it was things like write a load of keywords in white text on a white background so Google can see it and thinks that you're talking about certain content when actually users can't see it. So I learned about all these different clever ways of manipulating Google.

And then that's when I become really obsessed with, okay, well, how is people actually doing it the right way? And that's when I started to look into actual jobs of this. I was like, I'm going to teach myself, I guess. How did you clock that this was, oh, I can make money doing this? I think because it was new. I think it was because it excited me that nobody else was doing it. I think that's probably something that will come up in this conversation even more is like, I always spotted what everybody else weren't doing. Yeah.

So if somebody else was doing it, I'm like, I'm not bothered then. I want to do something that nobody else is doing. And that's really what set me out to be like unique. So I think at that time, not many people was talking about search engine optimization, but you could just see the budgets was getting bigger and bigger. So that, can you remember that content job that I wrote, started to get where I wrote about horses that I realized that was an SEO job. So I was writing content for websites to get them higher rankings for certain horse content. And I was like, wait, there's money in this. Yeah.

And I was like, wait, and actually people aren't that good at it. Like they're doing basic stuff really. So yeah, I kind of started to teach myself in my bedroom, watching YouTube videos, you know, reading books and Twitter and all that sort of thing. And I just kind of got my, put myself out there to learn as much as possible about this new thing that no one else was new about.

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Oh, so graduate uni, get really good grade. I can't remember what I got now. I think I got a first. I'm very proud of that moment of graduating. I remember crying with my mum, very, very happy. And essentially at the end of university, what they do is they get businesses, local businesses to come in and do career presentations.

And one of the businesses that came in was an agency called Sticky Eyes. Sounds really weird. It's a really weird name. But they're a marketing agency in Leeds and they do advertising and marketing and PR and things like that. And they was working with things like GHD, like the hair brand. And there was also had like MTV. So I remember them stood in front of our class talking about what they did. And SEO was one of it. And I was like, I want to work there.

That was like my goal. I'm going to work there when I graduate. And I was only like three months off graduating. So I went on their website and I saw that there was a grad scheme. And essentially there was going to be hiring two people to join their business. And there was a bit of a process around it. So I think there was like free stage application where you went into their office for the day and you got to set a certain task and you had to come up with an idea, blah, blah. So I went in and I remember thinking,

go in and win it with personality go in and win it with energy and positivity because i had good cv to be fair you know all the experience and all the free work i was doing like surely the google 360 stuff this is gonna set me in good stead um so i went to the grad day to go and like try win that job and yeah i won it so i got the job and worked there i was meant to be working there full time but i actually ended up getting made after three months i know

So while I was there though, the good thing is I learned so much. I remember I was put on GHD and they told me to go and PR some new launch, like product launches. And I was like, what do I do? There's like, you need to write press releases. And they taught me how to write press release and all that sort of thing. And then they said, you need to call up journalists and be, you know, build relationships.

And that was the first time that I ever caught, I thought, what do I do when I ring a journalist? I was petrified. I remember the moment that I first rang a journalist and it was one of the first journalists that I rang was someone at Vogue.

And that was the toughest. They literally hung up and was like, no, go away. I was like, oh. And they was like, no, you got to keep going. I was like, okay, well, who do I ring next? And they was like, right. So I learned how to kind of resilience again of like getting told no and keep going. So I ended up calling the Sun one day about this product launch. And luckily this girl called Ellie answered the phone. She was like, hi, I'm Ellie. I'm the beauty. She was the beauty editor at the time of the Sun.

I was like, hi Ellie. I was like, basically I've got this product about to be launched. It's for GHD. It's the new, it was when, you know, like copper gold was like a new trend. And it was like, they had the copper gold hair straighteners. So we're just about to launch it. I would love to send you a pair. She went, funny enough, she went, I'm a hairdresser in my spare time. I went, well, that's lucky. Again, a bit of luck. And she said this weekend, it was, I think it might've been Glastonbury or Leeds first or one of those basically. And she said,

And she said, I am actually doing Ellie Goulding's hair this weekend. I will use, if you can get me by tomorrow morning, I'll use the straighteners and I'll write a piece in the sun about it. And I'm thinking, oh,

And I hung up, I was like, went to my boss, I ran to her and I was like, "You're never gonna get smart. "I'm just worried you'll sit in the sun." She was like, "Can you move aside? "We need to cover this now." I remember thinking, "Ooh, that's obviously 'cause I've done some good work." But I remember feeling a bit like, "Oh, they've taken that off me." Like that was a really good opportunity. It landed in the sun, it did really, really well. So, and they sold out of GHDs at the time as well. So it was really, really nice PR and we ended up doing more press coverage and stuff.

So I guess that was when I first started to learn what is PR, how to get brand mentions, how to get links back to websites. And that's how we can improve SEO and stuff. So yeah, that was my early stages of learning how to do what we do. So let's say someone's listening to this and they're like, I want to launch my, I don't know, product that...

I don't know, squeezy handheld bidet for the toilet or something like that. But I haven't got an audience. I don't have a YouTube channel. I don't have a podcast. Like, can I get a placement in like the sun? Like, is that possible for normal people to do? It is. I guess. How do you do it?

So the best way to describe it is you've got to create a story. So a lot of people listening to me then will probably say, yeah, but it's GHD. That's easy to get in the sun. You know, people love GHD. It's a big brand already. So I guess we work with a lot of startup brands as well. And the biggest thing that I teach a lot of, so we have a team of 50 odd PRs now. And what I teach them is you just got to create a story that people will be interested in.

It might be something funny, reactive, creative. Like I'm trying to come up with an idea around this bidet thing or whatever, but you basically ought to come up with something that people will find either useful, engaging, funny, or resourceful. So it could be like a data-led piece or something that positions you as an expert, but that's how you get PR. So yeah, I've worked with lots of like brands, everything from finance, which might be sound boring, travel, cars, you know, all that sort of thing. And mostly you just have to take

the product or service and create a story out of it that people actually care about and that might sound like okay well how do you create a story um but I think it's mostly around know what's relevant know what's relevant in the media what people are talking about and try and make your brand relevant to that trend so it might be hmm there was a massive trend recently around

and are they listening to us? You know, like people's data security and privacy and things like that. And we had a technology client that basically looked into data security and clouding. So essentially what we did is we did a study to look at how much data does Facebook have on us versus Twitter, versus Instagram, versus TikTok. And we basically created this like online report, which we then pushed out to press to reveal which,

app actually knew the most about us and we ranked them you know across all these different apps around the world and that's how we got press coverage for our brand so it's an idea of like okay well the the thing that was big at the time was is our facebook listening to us and we then turned that into a campaign story positioned our client as an expert and able to get you know mass press coverage as a result of it

Nice. Okay, so it's not about this client has just released a new cloud security data infrastructure. No one gives a fuck. No one cares. But if you turn it into something, a compelling piece of content. 100%. And a lot of traditional PRs might say, you need to build relationships and that's how you're going to get the press coverage of your product. But I'm like, no, people will not cover that. They don't care. Like even when like we work with some of the sexiest brands, like fashion brands and beauty brands, and they'll might do a big collection with the Kardashians or it might even be an...

you know, another celebrity face or anything like that. They still don't care about that. How can you make it relevant to me? Because what they need is traffic. They need social shares. No one really cares that, you know, Khloe Kardashian has done another range with another fashion brand. But what else can we create that is going to get the traffic and the shares for the Daily Mail? Because we can create an angle on that. So yeah, you've really got to think about their metrics and what they care about and how you can help them hit their KPIs too.

That's super interesting. Can you think of any other kind of examples of sort of trying to sell something boring and turning it into an interesting story? Yeah. Misguided. They was launching a new maternity range. Is that a clothing brand?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clothing brand. Fashion brand for women. And they was launching a new range for maternity. So when people get pregnant, there's not much range out there in terms of dresses and clothes and things to wear. Not much choice. So Missguided are quite a fashionable brand. They actually don't exist anymore, but this was like four years ago. But what they did is they decided to launch an actual maternity range that looked nice for once.

And they said, can you market it? Can you PR it? And I was like, well, yeah, but there's loads of maternity brands out there. There's loads of people that do maternity clothing. So we need to come up with a story. Leave it with us. So we then started to look at the media. What are people talking about? And one of the things, I don't know, do you watch Love Island? I've seen bits of it. Okay.

I can't remember her name, but one of the Love Island members, she was a model on ASOS. Okay. And she was found, so somebody watched the TV show and they basically found her on ASOS in the maternity section. And they were like, wait, she hasn't got kids. And she had like a maternity bump.

And what they revealed is it's fake. So people that wear these maternity shoes, they're models that have these like maternity shoes, they wear fake bumps. So it caused uproar. Everyone was like, oh my God, that's not like realistically what a woman's body looks like. Like the fake bumps, how can they realistically show, you know, what that dress looks like when actually we've got bumps and cracks and all this sort of stuff in all different places. So the consumer on Twitter and stuff like that was screaming out for realism.

So I was like, I've got a story. I know exactly how to market our maternity range. We went and actually got real pregnant models. We basically called up a few models that was pregnant, heavily pregnant with big bumps. And we said, we actually want to do a photo shoot with you. And usually models like what? Like I've lost my gigs for a year because I'm pregnant, but actually you want to take photos of me? We're like, yeah, because we want to show what real women look like. So we did this whole photo shoot of maternity range with the realistic actual real bumps. And we showed it with the stretch marks and everything.

And it went all over the press. And it's like the first fashion brand to do a realistic maternity range. So that's how we added a story to something that is, I guess, just a product launch. Nice. That's really cool. Yeah.

Okay, so let's say I'm a normal person wanting to market my bidets and I figure out some kind of story. This bidet thing is really hard. I bought one off Amazon the other day and I've just been sort of shilling it to all my friends and be like, guys, this is sick. Okay, cool. So let's say I think, okay, cool, I've got a story angle for XYZ. Can I just...

Click contact us on thesun.co.uk and email it? How does that work? Yeah, so when you work in PR, you get access to loads of databases. So databases are usually quite expensive to kind of get a handle on, but there are some free ones as well. So even if you don't go on like typing on Google, free journalist database, there's loads on there. But essentially what they do is they give email addresses for editors across different niches. So if you're looking for a fashion writer, fashion editor, or beauty, or travel, or automotive finance, whatever it is,

these databases will have them all listed. But what you have to really do is do your research because often what PRs go wrong with is they just send it out to loads of journalists thinking they're going to pick it up. But what you need to do is super targeted. So take the misguided maternity one for an example. Everybody that was covering the fact that the Love Island person was caught with a fake bump

I pulled a list of everyone that wrote about that story. And I knew that if we responded to that story with misguided launch, a real range with real bumps, that they're more than likely going to cover it because they only wrote about it a week ago. So I basically made it super relevant to the journalists. So I pulled a list because if you go on like the Daily Mail or BBC or anything, their name is underneath, like, you know, I'm the author of this content. So it's finding those through databases. If you can't find them on databases, guess it. Okay.

As in guess their emails. Like firstname.lastname at the sun or whatever. Literally it. It's usually always firstname.lastname at the sun.co.uk. Mailonline.co.uk. So just guess it. If it doesn't work, it'll bounce back. If it does, win. Nice. And anyone can do this? Anyone. Anyone.

Bloody hell. What's the point of a PR agency? Most people can't do it because of time. They can't come up with the ideas and they haven't got the tools to be able to. They struggle to come up with a good story that people care about. I think a lot of brands internally, they obviously day-to-day work on a brand all the time and they love it. They get to love the brand. They get to love their products and things like that to a point where they're like, oh my God, we need to launch this to the press. And it's like,

But no one cares about it. Well, we do. But they don't. So I think what they need is an external person to actually say, how can we make this relevant? How can we make this shareable, clickable, spiable even? So I think PR agencies not only create stories around things, but they actually make it that people actually want to buy these things as well.

Something I read on Twitter actually is like someone said, everyone is the same. Every product is the same. Like mostly, you know, even down to like phones or laptops, everyone sells laptops, you know, in terms of brands.

But it's all the marketing. It's the PR angles that makes it different. And that's why they use PR agencies or is to create a different angle on it, create a different story, target a different consumer. So that's mostly why brands need agencies like that. Okay. Tons of more questions on the agency front. But before we go there...

I really like that thing you said around like targeting. Yes. Because I get like dozens of emails a day from like clearly copy freaking pasted. Yeah. A dear influencer. We'd love to. And I'm just like, why? Yeah. And similarly, when we put out job descriptions for people applying to work with us. Oh, yeah.

you get the people that like one click apply on LinkedIn and it's just like come on and then the people that actually take the time to write an email which is super targeted which is like 100 times more likely to get in through the door yeah and I don't know who's telling people that like spray and pray is a reasonable strategy but I just love the fact that even in especially in like the PR world it's really about a targeted attack yeah to be fair that still happens to this day so I have my own YouTube channel and I just basically video behind the scenes of the agency the wins the fails and all that sort of thing and

And because I'm on YouTube, I'm actually on a lot of databases as an editor, content creator.

So often PRs send me press releases like, oh, I've got this new product launch. And I'm like, what? I own my own agency. I'm kind of like some of my competitors send me their releases. And I'm like, why are you doing this? Because they're not checking. They're just like spraying and praying. So I think it still happens this day. And I think the best agencies are really good at super targeting, knowing what people are talking about, like building those relationships with journalists. And that's the thing that a lot of people just don't put the energy into doing.

But I also think even down to like, you know, job applications and things like that, all we do. So I spoke to a journalist actually. They on average get 600 emails a day. Oh, wow. Yeah. They cover, by the way, around six stories a day. Yep. It's a lot because we're in a digital world. They need to be producing articles fast. Yeah.

If you work out the average time, that's about an hour an article. So they have not got a long time. So you've got to stand out in the inbox, number one, which is the hardest thing to do when there's 600 emails. You've got to capture their attention, give them everything on a plate without not boring them in, you know, whatever. So it's a very, very tough market for a PR, but you just got to be able to find a way to do that. So, yeah, it's not easy. Yeah, I think part of the issue that I see is, yeah,

There's a lot of people talking in videos and courses and stuff around like the easy way to make money. And it's like, oh, just copy paste this template, stick it in a mail merge and send it out to 5,000 people and someone will respond. No way. It's like,

It's because people don't want to do the hard work of actually taking the time and talking to someone and finding their email and figuring out why it's actually compelling and how to add value. I was actually talking to my PR director the other day. So I've worked with him all of my career. So when I worked here, I walked into another job straight out of Sticky Eyes, a company called Branded 3. So this is another company that I had heard about and knew was quite good at what they did. They was actually voted the best agency in Europe at what they did.

And I ended up getting a job there. I was like, "Yes." Got in straight away. And I think it's the whole son thing what I did there. There was like, "We want you." So I got a job there. I walked in and I ended up working with this guy called Will. And he was the PR director or PR manager at the time. And essentially we have worked together for about 10 years. He's with me now at my company. And we spent 10 years figuring out the best way to do it.

10 years it took us to actually find out the best way to write a release, the best way to target press releases, the best way to build a relationship and efficient ways as well. And now, so obviously I'm building my own business and I'm hiring people 24 seven to the point where I have people joining the business and within two weeks, they're delivering like industry leading results in two weeks. And these are like 21 year olds, like, and people are like, how the hell are they like learning how to do that? But

But I think some of the team take it for granted because what we realized the other day is it took us 10 years to give you that resource and those information of how to do this and be able to get those results in two weeks because we didn't get those then. So yeah, I think it takes a lot of time. So, you know, when you say like people want quick win strategies, it took me years to figure out how to do it to the, like we're a five-star standard now, in my opinion, and I'm biased, but we're a five-star standard now, but it took us a lot of years to get there.

So you do the job at Sticky Eyes for three months and then you join... Got made redundant. Yep. Because they lost a client. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that's why I realized... I guess when I got made redundant, I was like crying. I was like, what? I was doing...

was doing really well and I thought I took it personally but they'd actually lost a client and that's the thing I learned about business is they lose revenue they have to cut heads and I was like okay so I learned not to take it personal so I'd heard of another agency called Brandy 3 and I basically tweeted the director there I said I want a job there she went come in and come chat to me I went and spoke to her and the CEO and I got offered the job on the week so

Yeah, I got very lucky. So that's also an unusual approach. Like you didn't go on the website and like try and apply officially and all that stuff. Yeah. You just messaged on Twitter. I think when I'm under pressure, I do things out of the ordinary. So for me, I just thought I was under pressure because number one, I had an apartment in Leeds and my rent was £850 a month.

And I was only earning £850 a month at the time, I think, at Branded 3, at Sticky Eyes. So my salary was really low, but I had a rent to pay for. So I was under pressure and I wanted a job fast. So instead of just going through careers and doing the typical thing, I thought, do you know what? I'm just going to tweet her. Because she did tweet out the job ad. And I just said, I want that job. That's mine. Can I chat to you? And she obviously saw in my bio I worked at the compere agency. So clearly she's going to want to know what I've got to say. So yeah.

I did that on depression. It worked. Nice.

So you got the job and then how long were you there for? I was there for six and a half, I ran it up seven years. Oh, wow. Yeah. Long time. Yeah. How was that experience? Amazing. I learned so much. I was very loyal, obviously saying that seven years is very rare, by the way, in a marketing agency. Typically people stay within marketing agencies for about two years, I think is normal, two, three years. So the fact that I stayed there for seven years is, yeah, it was a good ride. Got to track really well, learned loads. I started in the industry marketing things like

car insurance um i worked on gambling so ladbrokes was one of my accounts which was not the sexiest i don't know anything about cars i don't know anything about gambling i don't bet like it's not my thing but because i learned how to market really tough brands i can market anything in my opinion what are the principles behind marketing stuff like if we we've talked a little bit about kind of creating the story around it yeah what else is there as part of

Because I guess to some people who don't have that background, marketing can seem a bit... Marketing, sales equals scam equals this is just bullshit. It's just hot air. They're just trying to pump up the value of a thing that doesn't... I think there's a lot of misconceptions around what marketing actually is. And I've only recently started actually diving into this for my business and being like, oh, wow, people have written books about this. These books are really good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So what's your strategy when it comes to marketing? So quite a broad question because this is Martin Sobe. But I guess my strategy, the way that I think about it is generating brand demand. I think you can pay as much as possible to get people to see who you are and what you've got to say. So a lot of people put, you know, do paid advertising and things like that. And you can pay as much money to generate customers and it does work. But

But I think for me, I'm more about how do I build a brand so I don't have to pay for customers? People come to me. That's really what I focus on. There's a concept called, it's an advertising concept and it's called the Purple Cow. Have you ever heard of it? I've heard of it. What is it? So basically, it's all around- That one's Seth Godin's book. Seth Godin, yeah. I've never heard of it.

Yeah, I've not read the book. What is the purple cow concept? So basically, the purple cow concept is around standing out and being different. So essentially, what he basically said was, when you're driving along and you see a field of cows, you don't really go, oh, look, a cow. You don't do that. You see it every day. It's the same old stuff. But if you drove along one day and looked in that field, and all of a sudden there was a purple cow, you're going to pull up and you're going to go, what the hell is a purple cow?

And that's the thing about advertising and brand. We're consuming content, a load of content every single day. Like, you know, even getting here today, the amount of advertising that I see, people don't realize how many advertising you see. I think you see a thousand in a day, by the way. So a thousand adverts in a day. And that could be on billboards. It could be on your phone, on Instagram. So you are constantly consuming content. And the idea is that how do we make sure we create content that actually people see and

And remember it. And that's the biggest thing. So there's another, and that's what the purple cow is. It's like, if you can build a brand that people actually remember and see, it stands out in a line of 100 pieces of content, that's how you're going to get customers. So that's how people really invest in really standout marketing. So I guess something like...

compare the meerkat yeah is a purple cow the go compare singer dude yeah it's a bit of a people like talk about it it's like annoying but like yeah but in a still in a memorable way yes and those are the only two price comparisons i know yeah because of those two things yeah yeah and that's why you remember it but you can't remember anything else you don't know like money.co.uk or you know confuse.com these are all like comparison oh yeah yeah i remember that one but it doesn't have to be like oh yeah i've seen an ad for that somewhere but there was nothing about that that's

Yeah. And take GoCompare. So GoCompare, their GoCompare, their TV ad, it was remembered, but remembered negatively. And what I mean by that is it's annoying. It's a little bit irritating, but it makes you remember it. So there's another fact. So 20 million is spent, no, I lie, 20 billion is spent every single year on advertising.

89% of that is never remembered at all. I think it's 4% is remembered positively and 7% or something is remembered negatively. But as long as it's remembered. So with 89%, if you take, I don't know the maths, I'm not very good at it off the top of my head, but 89% of 20 billion is a lot of money that is being wasted every single year on advertising by advertising and marketing that's just never remembered at all. And I think it's because 89% of people are stupid. They don't know how to market to people.

So it's a lot of money to be wasted. And I guess when I started to build my own agency out, I needed to go and find those people that weren't stupid. If 89% of people were stupid in marketing because they didn't know how to create an advert that got remembered, there's a very, very small pool of people that knew how to do that. So yeah, I guess when I decided to start my own marketing agency, that's what I focused on. How do I get those people to create advertising that's remembered, this purple cow concept? So how were you doing that for something like Ladbrokes?

Like what's the... Or like current for instance. Like are you trying to... Because something like the GoComparer man is a bit of a gimmick, but like in a way that works, but no one else has really succeeded with by copying that kind of thing. Similarly, no one else is trying to do the Meerkat thing. So like how do you even begin to...

make Ladbrokes interesting or some random card show that's interesting? Ladbrokes is a difficult one, mostly because I guess the best brand I can compare it to is like Paddy Power. So like Paddy Power, they do really well with that sort of thing. I guess they're kind of like the go-compare of the world, you know, in terms of they do advertising stunts that are comical, that people share, but it's mostly around for Ladbrokes consistency.

So there's a thing called mental availability and there's physical availability. So I guess when you walk down the street in London and you see a Labrook store, that's physical availability. They're available. Yeah, they're everywhere. But then when it comes to mental availability, it's like, how do we make sure that if I say gambling, you think Labrooks?

Or if I say car insurance, you think go compare. So mental availability is the thing that marketers really are tapping into. So with LabRooks, it's mostly around consistency. You need to make sure that whenever people are looking at sports content, whether it's horse riding, football, rugby, whatever it is, LabRooks appear consistently.

Whether it's TikTok content, YouTube ads, PR, you know, maybe you're researching of how to place a bet because you've never placed a bet before. You know, touching users at all different times of the journey. So yeah, it's all around how do you appear when people are looking to make a bet? And people are not just, you know, making a bet all the time. They might be just scrolling through sport content. So it's all around consistency of appearing. Yeah.

So that's why you would see like Ladbrokes and Betfair and Bet365 ads on the football billboard-y type things around the pitch. Yeah. Because they just want to be like... Mental availability. ...associate that thing with sports. Exactly, yeah. Like if I think of Razor Browns, I think of Gillette. Yeah. And I know that Wilkinson Sword exists, but like, I'm never going to buy one. It's just like, obviously Gillette is like the good one. Even though, and then you get ads like Dollar Shave Club. Yeah. That would be like, hey, just one blade, that's all you need. Yeah. And they would then use that to...

counter the huge advantage that Gillette have. Yeah. Here's something for you. I saw it actually the other day. Brand is very, very interesting. So a lot of people think brand is that thing you invest in that is a bit fluffy, it's hard to track, it's hard to measure. However, this is why brand is really important. So say if you walked into Starbucks and there is two types of people in Starbucks sat, you know, working at their laptops. There's somebody on like a Windows laptop and there's somebody on a Mac laptop.

If you ask someone, what do you think he's working on, on the Mac? More than likely they'll say, oh, he's creating a movie or he's creating a film or a piece of music or something like that. What do you think he's working on, on the Mac? Yeah, spreadsheet, finance. That's why brand is important because what they do is associate that person with a job, for an example, and straight away it's an identity. So you buy the identity. So when you buy a MacBook, it's because you want to be seen as a creative.

So you're, you know, same with why you buy Gucci or Chanel or whatever, you want to be associated with those words. And that's why brand is really important. This episode is very kindly brought to you by WeWork. Now, this is particularly exciting for me because I have been a full paying customer of WeWork for the last two years now. I discovered it during, you know, when the pandemic was on the verge of being lifted. And I'd spent like the whole year just sort of sitting in my room making YouTube videos.

But then I discovered WeWork and I was a member, me and Angus, my team members, we were members of the WeWork in Cambridge and they have like hundreds of other locations worldwide as well. And it was incredible because we had this fantastic, beautifully designed office space to go to, to work. And we found ourselves like every day, just at nine o'clock in the morning, just going to WeWork because it was a way nicer experience working from the coworking space

than it was just sitting at home working. These days, what me and everyone on my team has is the all access pass, which means you're not tied to a specific WeWork location, but it means you can use any of their several hundred coworking spaces around London, around the UK, and also around the world. And one of the things I really love about the coworking setup is that it's fantastic as a bit of a change of scenery. So these days I work from home, I've got the studio at home,

But if I need to get some focused writing work done and I'm feeling a bit drained just sitting at my desk all day, I'll just pop over to the local WeWork, which is about a 10 minute walk from where I am. I'll take my laptop with me. I'll get some free coffee from there. I'll get a few snacks. And it's just such a great vibe. And you get to meet cool people. I've made a few friends through meeting them at WeWork. And it's just really nice being in an environment almost like a library, but kind of nicer because there's like...

a little bit of soft music in the background and there's other kind of startup bros and creators and stuff in there as well. And it's just my absolute favorite co-working space of all time. It's super easy to book a desk or book a conference room using the app and it's a great place to meet up with team members if you're going to collaborate and you'll live in different places. They've got unlimited tea and coffee and herbal teas and drinks on tap and they've got soundproof booths in which to take Zoom calls and meetings. Anyway, if you're looking for a co-working space for you or your team, then I'd 100% recommend WeWork. Like I said, I've been a paying customer for theirs for the last two years.

which is why it's particularly exciting that they're now sponsoring this episode. And if you want to get 50% off your first booking, then do head over to we.co forward slash Ali. And you can use the coupon code Ali at checkout ALI to get 50% off your first booking. So thank you so much WeWork for sponsoring this episode. So you're working at this agency for seven years. You're learning a lot of stuff along the way. Yes. Trying to make these kind of somewhat boring clients or accounts. In fun. In a nice way. Yeah. Okay.

So then what happens next? How do you decide that you want to do your own thing? So a couple of things happened. So I was progressing quite fast. I was one of the top performers in the team. Really, really loved it. Like really, really happy. But what I ended up starting to do is getting some... I actually ran a campaign once that went viral and it kind of put my name on the radar across the marketing industry. So much that I had Money Supermarket one day ring up the agency to say they wanted to work with us, the agency that I worked at.

and they want the ginger hair girl on the account so it kind of made me famous a little bit

But what that ended up resulting in is I had a lot of freelance offers. So people was like, oh, do you want to do some work on the side? And I'm like, yeah, I'll do some work on the side. So I started to do some work on the sides for a couple of brands and it was nothing kind of too crazy, just like, you know, bits and bobs here and there. But I ended up starting to earn more money doing that than freelance. So you remember Will, who I mentioned, he ended up becoming one of my bestest friends and I basically said to Will, hey,

hey, I'm getting that much freelance work. Do you want to half it with me? You get half, I get half and we'll work on this together and earn some side money. And it paid for things like holidays and nice handbags. It was just kind of like a side hustle, I guess. But what I realized is I was very, very good at what I did and I was becoming a lot more in demand. But what I also saw at the time, so the agency that I was currently at, Branded 3, they actually sold. So they sold to a bigger company called Edit. We got merged in.

And then some of the competitor agencies in the industry also got sold and merged in. And essentially there was not really a leader anymore. There was not really anybody that led the market because Branded Three was the most famous, but they'd sold and people started to leave. So I saw a massive gap in the market. And that's when I started to think maybe I could start filling that. I didn't know where to start with that yet though. It was just a, I spotted the opportunity. I don't know where to go next.

Funny enough, I was in work one day and Will said to me, Carrie, you know, I was still the same kid, you know, like I was at school, like chatty and giggling and he said, you should get on TV. You should apply for something like Big Brother or The Apprentice. So one night I went home and I'd had a few glasses of wine with my friends and basically I applied for The Apprentice. And I didn't think anything of it. I actually forgot about it.

I went to bed and then the next morning I woke up to an email from the apprentice saying, thank you for your application. We'd actually like you to push you through to the first round. You need to come to London on Monday. And I was like, whoa. I was like, what happens? What do I do? What do I wear? I remember shopping. And they said, you need to create a business plan, like rapid. So I had like two days to create a business plan. So obviously I already kind of knew what I did. I was like, right, use what I'm good at.

Second thing is I spotted a gap in the market. Let's expand on that. What is the opportunity for me? And then I started to think about products and that price and, you know, what I've learned, I guess, from building, you know, seven years of my career. So I started putting a business plan together. And one of the directors at the agency I worked at, Brenda 3, he was very kind of like good friends with me. And he's very supportive of me, like often like give me good life advice and career advice.

So I ended up messaging him saying, I've got a bit of a secret. I've applied for The Apprentice and I've got through to the first round. It's nothing serious yet because, by the way, 40,000 people applied that year. So there's a lot of people. So I had no idea where it was going to go. So I just said, can you help me put this business plan together? So he said, yeah, sure. And he sent me a few notes and he said, right, what have you done so far? And I sent it over. We built it out, basically.

I went down to the interview and I'll not go through everything because it's a very, very long story because there was multiple rounds and it was very in-depth and tiring, but it was very, very interesting. But there was one point where, so I remember going down to the audition

And there was lines and lines of thousands of people. And what they did is they put you into categories of 20 people. They put you in a room, they lined you up. And they basically said one person out of you 20 is going through that door. And then 19 others are going through that door. And it's up to you guys who goes through. It was brutal, extremely brutal.

So I remember they put me in this group of 20 people and they put you in a room and you spent about half an hour in the room before you went into another room to actually do like whatever was in that room. No one knew what was in that room. So I was listening to conversations and people saying, oh, I already run a business. And I was like, shit, I don't run a business. And someone was like, oh yeah, I'm already making millions. And I'm like, oh, like I don't do any of this yet. I don't make millions yet. I've just got an idea.

So we got put into this room and they lined us up, all 20 of us. And on the floor, we all had a number, but there was all mismatched. So it might be like 1, 11, 13, 21, you know, that sort of thing. And I had number nine. And they basically said, right, number three, can you step forward? You've got, I think it was 15 seconds to say why you should go through that door.

So people are like, well, I saved a life and I've done this and I've made money. And then it's like, right, step back. And I was like, whoa, this is brutal. You didn't have long at all to prove why you should go through that door. Number 11. So number 11 stepped forward. And then number 19. And then I remember I was like maybe like the fifth person that they said. And they said, right, number six. No one stepped forward. I was like looking. I was like, where's number six?

And I looked and I had number six, but because I actually had number four, I had number nine because it was upside down. It looked like a nine. So straight away people started laughing and I was like, oh no. And I went bright red because I was embarrassed then because I was like, oh, I thought I was number nine. And then anyway, so I was like, this is where I started to get under pressure. And I know I work well in pressure. And I stood forward. I can't even remember what I said, but I nailed it. And I went...

Okay, step back. I think I kind of, I don't know, I made myself into a, I thought to myself, if I'm in that room, I need to stand out personality wise than anything else. My business idea is good enough and I'll figure that out later on. But the thing I need to do is stand out. And I went in there and kind of really showed my personality. I didn't even blag, I didn't need to sit and talk about my success. I just went in and went in with my personality.

And long story short, they went for all of the 20 people and they said, "Right, number six, can you step forward?" And I stepped forward, they went, "You're going through that door, everyone else goes home." And what happens is I went through the door and you're in a lift and you go up the lift and you're at the seven floors and there's another seven, that second round, third round, and there was seven. Oh, it was brutal. So I got through to the final round, got invited back. We did TV, you know, the intro to camera, like, "Hi, I'm Carrie, did a bit." I did all of that. And then met the financial team, went through my business plan and they actually told me to go get private investment.

So this was like whilst I was still at Branded 3 and I didn't tell anybody. I only told the director and he kept it quiet. He was like a good friend so he kept it quiet as a secret.

So I went back and I said, I haven't got on the show, but they've told me to go get private investment. And somebody who had followed the process of The Apprentice basically offered me some money, not massive money, but enough money to go and start. So I basically said, that's it. That's my door open. Step through it. And I did. I went from there. Sick. Yeah. That's so cool. Okay. So...

You present the business plan to these apprentice guys. They say you should get private investment. Yes. Why do you need investment? Why not bootstrap and just go profit?

profitable from day one kind of thing yeah I could have done um I guess the investment what it gave me is the confidence um to go and figure it out because if it didn't work no matter like I don't need to like yeah they owned a certain percentage of the company a small percentage but I didn't need to pay that back um in that way um so I guess it was more of like okay if I could get a bit of a buffer a bit of a pillow to land on if things don't go okay then that's absolutely fine so it gave me the confidence that I had a

And I think a lot of business owners, when they launch, they're constantly looking back at their bank account. Can I afford this? Can I, I didn't look once. Something, fun fact, which I shouldn't really admit, but I didn't look at the bank account once for the first year. I didn't even know my login. But that was a good thing because I didn't look at whether I could afford it or not, which is crazy, like a crazy statement to make.

But what I did is I had my face forward and I was like constantly like, I can do anything. I can achieve it. You know, I don't need anything. I've got money behind me. I'll be fine. And it weren't a big amount of money, by the way, to a point where we ended up giving it back and saying, I don't need it. So we did that about three months in. Oh, okay. Yeah. So yeah, we ended up being profitable from day one. But what it gave me is confidence. And I do think that is a very hard thing to get when you're starting a business is that absolute confidence not to look back.

What did your, um, so when you were working at the, at the agencies, what sort of salaries were you getting and how did that change over time, over the seven years? My salaries? Yeah. Um, I guess I started at, you know, minimum 16 grand, something like that a year. Um, and I went, I can't remember what highest I went at, maybe like 35 grand. Okay. So that's the maximum I earned at that time. Um,

And that was when your freelance income, you were like, oh, hang on. Yeah. Like I'm making one 3K a month off freelance. Yeah. So that's cool. Yeah. Literally. Um, so yeah, I was earning more money then and I thought, you know what? I can go and start my own business and probably earn money a lot faster. Yeah. So I guess it was a, it was a way for me to be my own boss. Um, I was,

I was also quite, not for sure, I won't say frustrated, but I was like, there's a lot of things that I would have changed in that business at the time of Branded 3. Like, I was like, oh, what about this? You know, and you get no a lot and you're like, well, I would if I were you. You know, if I was the CEO running this company or the director or whatever, I'd be doing this, I'd be doing that. So often I was, I had ideas to improve the business that didn't, you know, I was a nobody really. So I guess I thought, well, if I go and start my own agency and own business, I can just roll it out and no one tells me no.

So yeah, I was a bit like that. What was the business plan like at the time? What was the concept? I wanted to start a search agency, which both drove demand for brands, but also captured it off the back of it. So I'll tell you a story of how I came up with that concept.

So it was 2000, I think it was 2018 or 2019. It was the year of the John Lewis Christmas ad where Elton John featured in it. Essentially, I was tracking the John Lewis Christmas ad. I didn't work on the ad, but I was tracking it because I wanted to know how people behaved after they saw the Christmas ad. Because I was obsessed with it. How do people behave when it comes to search, on social, behavior, buying, all that sort of thing.

So essentially, Elton John on the TV ad, I think they spent about 10 mil that year on the ad. And Elton John was playing the piano. He was a little kid and he turned into the artist he was with thousands of fans screaming in the audience. And one of the things John Lewis didn't realize, which I was tracking, is searches straight after that advert got released for pianos went up from 250,000 a month to 500,000 a month. They doubled. It actually went a little bit higher. It was about 131% increase.

So John Lewis was spending all his money on a TV ad to try to make sales of John Lewis products. But what they was actually doing is driving demand for pianos. So I typed in pianos. I think I searched piano as well. I was like, damn, I want to get better at the piano. So I typed in pianos in Google to see if John Lewis come up because that would be clever, you know, doing the TV ad, generating demand for pianos and then selling them at the back end. John Lewis was nowhere to be seen.

So people was generating, these brand was generating search demand and not even capturing it on the other side. So I just knew there's a massive gap where actually someone, an agency could work in the brand PR, advertising, whatever, generating demand for products. But we could also do SEO and content to capture that demand as well. So essentially that was the business plan. I'm going to create an agency which took, so there's two sides of advertising really. There's creative advertising, traditional advertising, and then there's digital performance advertising.

And they don't really sit close together. They're quite separate. And at the time, four years ago, I was like, wait, what if I put those two together? What if I hired 10 people from advertising, 10 people from search and digital and put them into a business? I wonder what happens. And so I did. And it made magic.

How many people did you need to get it off the ground? There was two of us. Okay. So, fun story. You know the director who I got to write the business plan? I text him and said, do you want to come with me? He was like, what? He actually just found out his wife was pregnant. Mm-hmm.

massive risk for him. I need the money. This guy was a director. He's on six figure salary already and I wouldn't. So I was like, well, you know, I was a lot more free and risk, you know, risk free and all that sort of thing. Whereas he had a lot to lose and,

So at first he turned me down and declined it. And then two weeks later, he actually called me back up and said, that offer, does it still stand? Let's do it. There was a few reasons why he decided to change mind. I think it was like changing the market, you know, probably a few late night conversations with himself, like motivating, can he do it? Can he not? So yeah, he decided to join. And we launched the business within two weeks of starting, basically creating the business plan and then launched it to the market, basically. How did you launch it?

At the time, we did a big post on social media that, so obviously he was a director at the agency and I was just, you know, a normal creative person. And,

And the fact that we had joined together after they merged and sold, it was a bit of like a, well, who's, what's next? It was like somebody needed some new news to the market, if that makes sense. There was not a leader anymore. So somebody needed to disrupt it in a way. So we basically did like a social media strategy where we did this big announcement on social media that me and him had joined forces to create an agency that no one's actually done before, brought advertising together and search together.

Another thing we did, it was only, it's actually on the day. So this is very, very ballsy. So the agency that we worked at, Brandy3, they owned an event called Search Leads. And it was basically like a conference. So every year they have people stood on stage teaching people how to do SEO and content. So that year was, I think myself and my co-founder was talking on stage that day.

Well, when they heard that we was leaving to start our own agency, we thought they would take us off the lineup because obviously there was like, wait, this is kind of a competitor. You know, we can't have them speaking at our conference. But the CEO was like, you know, they're only a small agency, two of you. So I think it's fine. We'll still have them talk. But we saw that as an opportunity. So Stephen was my co-founder. He was the first person to open the conference.

And usually we open the conference with a, hi, welcome to Search Leads. You know, this is Brandy Three's conference, blah, blah, blah. We opened it with...

So my business called Rise at 7 and he opened it with a Rise at 7 logo. And that. Ballsy. Very ballsy. I was like, yikes. I was not ready for that. That was not my idea. But it was the best thing we did. It was very ballsy. Probably lost a few friends out of that through the last job. I remember him saying that he was going to do that. And I was like, really? Yeah.

I was like, oh, I'm nervous. I was petrified. I remember I was like in the audience because I knew I had to talk later on in the day. And I was like, really, you're going to do that? He was like, you know, purple cow, you're going to have to stand out. You've got to take risks sometimes.

And so, yeah, he stood on that stage and he introduced Rise at Seven. And it was a very, very ballsy move. But what that meant was we got 4,000 people followers overnight on Twitter because people was in the audience. This conference, bear in mind, was a few thousand people big. And people was like, oh my God, really ballsy move. And what it showed is we're ready to disrupt. And that's what the market needed at the time. So I think we had to do that. We had to do something big.

Nice. Okay, that's cool. So you launched this thing within two weeks of making the business plan. Yes. And what happened?

like presumably you start getting clients from day one? - Yeah, we got a couple of clients and these are very small clients that probably no one's ever heard of. So we was working with like a small safety training company and like an exam paper company that did like exam training and things like that. So it was very small, not really enough to cover both of our salaries. He had to take a massive pay cut. I actually got paid rise, which is funny 'cause obviously I was only on 35 grand. So I got a little bit of a rise 'cause I was paying myself, you know, a bit more, but it only just covered our salaries.

But then we had a bit of an opportunity. So essentially, following the announcement, I got invited to speak at another conference because they was interested in how do we bring SEO and brand and advertising together in those ways in PR. So I got invited to speak on stage. And because of all the noise about us on social media, which literally was organic because we did a bit of ballsy marketing,

Thousands of people turned up. Literally, somebody took a picture like, Carrie, have you seen the room you're about to talk in? And I was backstage. There was people queuing out the door, sitting on the floor. I was like, oh my God. And I was like, well, I best go in there and nail this then. And usually it is people, Mark,

It's not really my audience that they're not going to buy from us. They're there to learn. So I didn't really think about the opportunities that could come out of that. Well, I stood on stage, did a really good talk for about 40 minutes and I got very lucky again because in that audience was the head of digital and Missguided.

And that's the first client, real big client, the brand, first brand we won. So what happened was I did the presentation and I come off stage to an email in my inbox and it was the head of Digital Misguided. And he said, hi, I've just heard you talk and I thought it was brilliant. I haven't seen a talk like that for a long time. I haven't really seen anyone think about it in the way that you guys are thinking about it. Can you come to our office on Monday and we want you to pitch for us. So we've actually already chosen agency to do global marketing for Misguided.

But you guys seem a bit of a wild card." I was like, "What? I misguided?" I was like, "I've never done fashion. Most of my career I did car insurance and gambling and things like that. But I was like, "If I can market gambling, I can market anything." So what I did is I called up Will who worked at Brand of Three and a couple of other friends and I said, "I need you to come to a meeting with me on Monday and pretend to be my staff." And they was like, "Okay, I'm in."

And I said, I need to look bigger than I am because right now I'm only two people, me and my co-founder, but I need to look like I've got staff that could be able to take on a client like this.

So we went to the pitch and admittedly, I was very transparent and said, these people don't work for me. But I said, but if you, if we win this account, I'll hire them tomorrow. And we won it. We won the global account there and then on the spot. And that changed everything for us. So we actually got featured in like Prolific North, which is like a marketing publication that, you know, rise at seven of just one misguided, like,

a two person agency, how the hell have they done that? And within 24 hours, we got a call from Pretty Little Thing

the Boohoo group, the full group, and said, get rid of Misguided and we'll offer you double the amount of money. We had PlayStation and all these brands get in touch with us literally within weeks. But we actually declined the Boohoo offer because we were loyal to Misguided. It was our fit. We didn't want to let them down, blah, blah, blah. So we stayed working with them for a year and then we decided to go for PLT after a year. But yeah, from that moment on,

We had maybe 65 brands get in touch with us. Everything from made.com, Halfords, Odeon cinemas. It just flew. It was the fastest paced like growth that I've ever seen. So we went from two people, we hired like seven, then we went to 25 and then we got to a hundred literally within like

seven months or something. It was crazy. And that was during pandemic? Pandemic. So we, obviously June 2019 is when we launched. So when pandemic hit, when like January, March of 2020. Yeah. I remember hearing noise about in January thinking it was just, you know, flu or something. And then March is when it got serious. So we had about six months, I guess, of normality, normal, you know, running a business of normal life. And then I remember when the pandemic hit and

I remember calling my mum because we was doing really well. And I remember calling my mum saying, mum, I think I'm going to lose everything overnight. And she was like, it's okay. And I was like, do I take my, because I was hiring at the time because I'd just won all this work, loads of clients. I was like, do I take the job ads down and not hire? And I remember my business partner was like, no, we're not taking it down. We look forward. We don't look back. We never have done. Keep going. And we just grew. We just grew rapidly during the pandemic. I think when the pandemic hit, I think we had about 17 staff

And we went from that to 70, literally within a few months. What was it that helped you win that initial misguided pitch?

And how does that work? When they say pitch for us, are you trying to like put on a slideshow or something and be like, hey, this is why you should hire us? Yeah. So typically what happens is they invite agencies in. So maybe say five, they'll invite five agencies in and you have to show why you, but it's less about you, but more about what ideas you have for them. So you have to give away a lot for free. It might be ideas, strategies. You have to do a bit of analysis into what are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? So we basically put a bit of a deck together of ideas

If we were running Missguided's marketing strategy, this is what we would do. And it basically, they were like, yeah, you've hit the nail on the head. So often we have to come up with PR ideas, social ideas, strategies of how we can convert customers better than they are currently and things like that. So usually you have an hour to pitch. I think we went in for about an hour, an hour and a half. And then we walked away and we got an email saying we won it. Okay, changing gears slightly. So we've got 70 people in the team so far at the moment. Yeah.

Let's say, as a bit of a thought experiment, you were allowed to clone, like, three of them. Ooh. A million times over, and you're like... Like, if you think of the people that are like, I would clone you in a heartbeat. Add to my business. What are the characteristics of those, like, clonable top performers? Ooh. Um... And I guess I'm asking, so someone listening to this is like, you know, if they're in a job and they want to kind of...

stand out or joining a new job or anything like that. Like what are the things that someone like you would be looking for as a business owner? Tenacity. Tenacity is that the word where you push through. I think there's not enough people in businesses that just keep pushing. Like even if you get a pushback, no, you can't do that. Or, you know, it's going to take time. You go, no, we'll figure out another way. And I think those are the people in my business that I go, yes, I'm so glad I've got you. Because I think people who don't take no for an answer or don't take pushbacks for an answer are the ones that succeed 100%. So I think tenacity. Yeah.

The second thing that I would do is clone anybody that is super curious. So one of the things I do, I test people in job interviews and I go, have you got any questions? And if they go, no, I don't think I have, they don't get the job. Anybody that wants to be successful or is going to be good at their job are curious. They're going to have a million questions and I want a million questions. I want them to ask me,

Carrie, what do you do day to day? Or how much money do you make? Or what are the problems in the business? Or what's the first thing you would like me to do? Or whatever it is. People who ask questions, they're the ones that succeed the most. And they're the ones that do well in things like pitches. If they're asking their clients questions all the time, tell me about this, tell me about that. How do I know about this? How do I learn as much as possible about you and your company? They're the ones that succeed. So I think those are the two things that I mainly focus on is tenacity and curiosity.

um and then lastly i think it's just enthusiasm i think people that are just everyday positive about their job um i think obviously we're not all positive you know i go through days of negativity i don't want to really go to work today whatever it is but i think if you have a positive outlook mostly on life i think you can change the perception of most most things basically

Can you think of many people that have those characteristics, but you would still say are underperforming? Like, is there a... Because we've talked about kind of like personality traits, tenacity, curiosity, and enthusiasm. Is there like a kind of tangible performance element as well that's decorrelated from those things? Or do you find that it kind of tends to go together? Tends to go together. I think there's a couple of things that I notice repeatedly in those people that they need to improve on. Usually those people aren't very good at...

They're like protective over, I can do this, I can do that. They force through things and I guess they're not very good at delegating work down and working as a team and things like that. But overall, they're usually the high performers. I call them the A players. Everyone has it. Businesses have A players and B players and I'll not list who they are today or anything like that. I have many A players. And one of the things that I always say is,

A good business is based off how many A players they have in the business. So if you have 30 people in your company and 15 of them are A players, you've got a very good company. I think people usually have, what, two, three A players? And it's really hard to get them, by the way. But yeah, I try to aim as many as possible.

And can you tell in an interview that someone's going to be an A player or is it like within a couple of months of seeing them? Like when do you find out? Usually I can tell in an interview and it's usually those three traits I just mentioned. I usually ask them, when was the last time you pushed through something, showed tenacity, like you didn't take no, you didn't give up.

Have you got any questions? Curiosity. And then enthusiasm. I just ask them, tell me something that you've done recently and just see how enthusiastic they tell. And you go, you just know that they are going to be your A players. And you find that that prediction holds true when you see them in real life. Yes, it does. The only thing is A players don't usually stick around because they become entrepreneurs. They usually go and start their own businesses.

And that's what happened with me. I had a lot of people leave and go start businesses, which I'm very proud of. I'm like, wow. Like I hired a hundred and overall I've hired 140 people in the last three years.

And so many of them have gone to start their own businesses. And I'm proud of that because I remember thinking like, I want my people to work here and go and work for Netflix or Disney or, you know, amazing brands or go start their own businesses. And I'll be very, very proud. And that's my success metric if I can go and create that. So yeah, the fact people have gone and started their own businesses is a good thing. But it did mean that I had to constantly replace people because they come, they learn, and then they move on and go start their own thing. So yeah, Apley is a very, very valuable, but they're very hard to keep.

We were talking before around kind of downsizing the business. Yes. How was that for you when you had to let people go? Really hard. I build this business or run this business with my heart. I was often quite jealous of my co-founder because I felt he ran the business through money in commercial. He looked at the business with numbers above people's heads and he admitted that.

And I used to think that was a superpower. Whereas I ran the business through relationships in my heart and I love people. And I found it really hard to let people go or say, sorry, there's not a job anymore, whatever it is. I remember the first person I ever let go and I cried. I remember thinking, God, I must look a mess right now. And I was like, sorry, you know, we're going to have to let you go. And they probably hate me now, but I was like, it was very difficult for me. I felt like I was letting people down. Yeah.

So, yeah, it was difficult. But I think now it's very similar to my early learnings when I got made redundant. It's just business. And I've learned to try to teach them. It's not personal. You're not bad at your job. You're not, you know, and I often try to recommend people and go, right, I can't keep you. But I've got you an interview tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Get ready. You'll get the job. And I'm really confident.

I'm really grateful. I'm proud that there's a lot of instances where I've got people in jobs straight. Well, I have mostly. People work at Right7. We're a really good agency. So a lot of people get jobs real fast. But yeah, it was not an easy thing for me to go through. And for the benefit of people listening. So the people that you've had to let go, not because of redundancy, but because of performance. Yeah. What have been some of the characteristics of those sorts of people? Like things that people should not do when they're in the next job or in their current job?

People haven't... When they haven't performed well, they haven't spoken up and been honest. I think if they said...

I'm really struggling with this. Can you teach me how to do it or better or whatever? I've missed, you know, how to do that. And sometimes it is not just, it's not their fault. It could be our fault. It's like, oh, we didn't train them on that. I thought we had, you know. So I think speaking up and being honest. I think a lot of people leave it too late and they're being let go. They're like, oh, I wish I stepped, you know, said something. And I'm like, I wish you said something too. If they were struggling with certain roles. So I think, yeah, don't be afraid to step up and share your weakness and what you're not good at.

Another thing I would say is failing to keep trying. I think when you do get a pushback, maybe a campaign hasn't worked or you haven't got the results that you want, it's quite easy that people give up. And I think, yeah, that's often like a quite bad trait where you're like, you're gonna get a lot of pushbacks in business. You're gonna run campaigns that aren't gonna work.

But you just got to keep trying and learn from those failures. So make sure that you do a review of, right, this didn't work out, but this is what I learned and I'm going to apply it to my next kind of campaign, whatever it is. So yeah, I think they're the two most common reasons, I guess. Yeah.

yeah i think i can really relate to the the first one you said around like where people want to almost feel as if they're covering up yes things because they feel like oh i don't want to stick my head up as being the underperformer yeah and they probably probably don't realize that like you're probably thinking it already as a business owner and then if only they spoke up you would know okay cool there's an explanation we can solve this blah blah blah yeah rather than stewing on it for two months and then being like all right this person has to go 100 yeah we've had a we put out like a q a thing um

for the podcast a little while ago a question that often came up was um advice for women specifically in in the workplace like do you see any patterns of like i know to like you know what women are like versus what men are like and what yeah both parties i guess can do differently or quite better yes this is quite i don't know whether people are going to like hearing this or controversial so um let's talk about the pay gap um a lot of people say women are paid less than men

I actually observe how people behave or women behave versus men behave. And men are more likely to ask for a pay rise because they're more confident to ask for more money.

Women naturally have a maternal instinct. So they're often open to doing things for free because it's a maternal instinct. I'll look after you. I'll do that. Don't worry about it without asking for more pay. Men, a lot of men, not like generic, but a lot of men would not do that for free. So they're more likely to go, yeah, I'll do that, but you can pay me more money to do it. Whereas women are less likely to go, yeah, I'll do that. Don't worry about it. So I do think there are certain traits in men or women that mean that men do get more money than women.

So I guess one thing that I like to do is tell women about that. If you can make them aware of it, by the way, you know, that guy over there, he wouldn't have done that for free. He would have said, you can pay me another 50 quid or whatever.

If I can let women know that, then they're like, oh, I didn't realize someone else would ask for money for that. Like, I'm happy to do it for free. And I'm like, no, no, no. So you've got to set those examples. So you do see traits in different kind of genders. Obviously, I'm a woman myself and I can see, you know, I do know it exists. I've seen the data of, you know, gender pay gaps and things like that. But I do see also the traits that I see in women and men and how men are more confident to go, wait, you want more from me? You can pay me more money. Nice. Yeah.

Is there anything else that comes to mind around women versus men in any of these kind of workplace-y regards? Yeah. So this is something a little bit different. This is more around like leadership. So I have a coach and such a female coach and she basically coaches me about how to be a good leader, good manager and all that sort of thing. And we was chatting one night and she was called Nicole and I said, Nicole, I'm

how many times you've done this? How many people do you coach? She said, Carrie, I've coached like over 100 people. I says, what do they vary? She said, CEOs, business owners, billionaires, multimillionaires, that sort of thing. She says like, that's typically what I go for. I said, what's the gender split? She went 50-50 to be fair. I don't just look after women, I look after men as well. And what typically do you see in women versus men? And she said this thing, she said, women are often struggle with

their confidence in feeling like they deserve a place at the table. Imposter syndrome, they don't feel good enough. They are always trying to prove themselves. She says that is what women leaders struggle with. Men, they really struggle building relationships with their business, with their people, with their propositions. They don't really have a heartly relationship with what they do and what they sell every day. And they see it more as a commercial kind of transaction.

And she says, that's usually what people come to me for when it comes to coaching. And I found that really interesting because I saw myself in that, you know, the imposter syndrome, not feeling good enough, proving myself, all that sort of thing. But I also saw my business partner in that because my business partner, he's actually left the company now. I went for a management buyout in November. But one of the things he really struggled with is building a relationship with the business.

He just saw it as a commercial transaction. That's what he saw it as. And sometimes I envy that because I think if I didn't have that relationship with the business like I do, like it's driven with my heart, I wouldn't get so upset when someone leaves or whatever or go for a bad day. So yeah, that's something that I see in two different genders in that way for leadership.

So you've gone from kind of growing up on a council estate to having a, you know, being the owner of a $7 million business, which seems to be continuing to grow. How has your relationship with money changed over time? I still don't pay myself enough. And what I say about it, like I say, I want a good salary. I earn good money. I like go on nice holidays. Like I've been on holiday. I've got a tan. Like I do nice things.

but I still don't take money out of the company. My boyfriend, actually, the other day I was saying, oh, we're flying to Vegas in a couple of months and I've got a conference I'm talking at. And I've asked him, do you want to come with me? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I'll come with you and we'll go to Vegas, whatever. And I was like, oh, I'm probably going to have to, I'll pay for your flights though because I don't want to put it through the business. He's like, why? You own the business. Why don't you just put it through the business? And I'm like...

it's like, I feel cheeky. He's like, who do you feel cheeky to? You own it. And I'm like, oh yeah. I think my relationship with money feels as if it's not mine still, which is really weird. It's like I'm working for somebody else, but I'm also, I've always been good with money. I'm not like the type of person to get into debts or anything like that. I always work hard to pay what I need. So I guess my relationship with money is that

I thought money would make me happier. I thought money would, you know, it gives me the freedom to do what I want. Like the fact I can travel the world and, you know, I'm looking at buying an upgrade in my house. I'm doing all these kind of life upgrades at the minute. But I don't think it's necessarily changed my perception about the world or anything like that. I don't necessarily feel any different, I guess. Yeah. And I guess like,

The way you value business money is very different to the way you value your own money. Oh, yeah. 100%. I remember, so in our first year, we set ourselves a KPI. So 90% of businesses fail in their first year. And I wanted to make sure we weren't one of them. And I guess we gave ourselves the KPI to make 300 grand in our first year. Because 300 grand is... Revenue or profit? Revenue. 300 grand revenue is we're making money.

And it covered what I forecasted headwise, like staff wise to make a little bit of profit. And it was enough to, you know, cover some salary or whatever, but not enough really to grow. And I remember it was maybe like three months in after launching, we made 300 grand. And I was like, and then I said to the team, if you make 600 grand, then maybe we'll look at bonuses or something like that.

And I said, if you make a million, I'll take you all on holiday. Because I didn't think we'd make a million. We made 1.5 in our first year. And that was crazy. But I didn't really understand the concept of how easy it was to make money. That's a very weird statement to make and a very out statement to make. That money is easy to make. And I do think it is now. I know it's easy to make money.

But the hardest thing is running the actual business. That's the hard thing and running people and managing people. But yeah, I didn't realize how possible it was. But what I saw it as all the time is if I could make money, I can reinvest in the business and keep growing and keep growing. So I've never taken any big sums, you know, when people take money out of the business and buy themselves nice cars. I've never done any of that. I've reinvested back in and grown. So yeah.

Yeah, one of the things I really know, so I was in Miami these last two days for this marketing mastermindy type thing. Oh, yeah. Around, you know, some people like Neil Patel were there.

Yeah, yeah. So these big SEO type people. Yeah. People doing like $100 million plus in their agencies. And I'm just like feeling really poor. But one of the things that was so interesting about hanging out with that sort of people doing multi-million, multi-tens of millions with their business is that it just kind of changes your attitude towards money. And they're just throwing out, oh, yeah, you know, hoping the agency is going to get acquired by private equity in the next two years for like 20x EBITDA, 250 million, something like that. Yeah. And I'm just like, what the hell? What?

And just the energy and attitude with which they approach millions and tens of millions makes me then feel, huh, I guess...

probably, you know, perhaps it's not that hot. Yeah. Whereas back in the day when I was working as a junior doctor, I was like, oh, 30K, what a fantastic salary. It's like top 86% of owners in the country, you know, that kind of stuff. And I would have just not realised that in a way, it's just kind of a different way of thinking about money. And in a way, it gives you permission to then sell a $10,000 product. Whereas before I'd have been like, oh my God, this is so much money. I can't imagine. And,

Just that attitude with which you approach money. So this is a weird thing. So we went in our second year from three to seven million. And well, going from second to third year, three to seven million. I can't really remember that. I can't really remember how that felt going from three to... Because that seems like a big jump. It's more than double, you know?

And I don't really remember like seeing or witnessing that. And I think like when you get in those bigger numbers, it feels like if you can make 50 million, you can make 300 million. Because the difference between 50 million and 300 million is not a lot more because it's actually just, you know, just...

triple that and actually that's easy if you got to 50 million I'm pretty sure you can get to 300 million so when you're talking those numbers it probably doesn't it feels like blase but I remember when I when we first hit a million and we actually had a million cash in the business which is quite rare to have and usually people spend cash cash goes out the company but we actually ended up making enough money to have about a million pound in cash in the bank and I opened the bank and I

I saw a million pound for the first time. I've never seen, you know, the actual numbers, other than movies. Like I saw a million pound and I was like, oh, and a screenshot was sent to my mum. I was like, have you ever seen a million pound before? And she was like, no. I said, look at this. And it just felt weird for me to see. And this was not in my personal background, by the way. It was Rise at Seven's business. Yeah.

And this cash then was reinvested into the business to allow it to grow, hire people, get offices. We've now expanded out to New York and things like that. So that allowed us to do that. But yeah, I remember my perception of money just thinking like, wow, and I still feel like that to this day. I think maybe it'll change. Maybe I'll start to think, okay, I feel a little bit different when you're hitting your tens and your 20 millions. Like I have friends now in industry who are about to sell businesses for like 200 million. I'm like,

That's crazy. Yeah. Like people have to win lotteries to get that. Yeah. Whereas you've just built an agency. I say just, but like it's hard, but still like it's very rare. But I think when you learn how to make money, you realize actually it's not that hard to do it. You just got to learn how to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

There was an interview I was listening to with Alex Hormozy, who, you know, does a lot of content, you know, $100 million business owner, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And one of the questions someone asked him was, hey, man, you know, how do I make $100,000 a year doing what I love? And he was like, dude, you know, if that was me, I'd spend one day selling a $100,000 project to a single company. And then I'd think, what the hell do I do with the rest of my 364 days of the year? Yeah. And that just blew my mind because it's just a way of thinking about money that's completely different. Yeah. And weirdly, I think, like...

People I know who earn like 30k, 40k a year are not working any less hard than the people earning 40 million. It's just they're in a different industry. People earning 40 million are working hard to sell projects to Google and Facebook and Microsoft. Exactly. People earning 40k are working hard to sell the same thing to like a much smaller business. Yeah. And often it's just like, who is the client that you're working for? Yeah. Which just completely changes the multiple that we're talking about. So I think about this all the time. So my friend is a nurse and she earns like 32 grand.

And she's like, "Oh, you know, working day and night." Like the NHS is kind of like grinding her and things like that. And she's like, "I'm tired." Like, "You do realize if you work those hours in just in the tech industry, you could be doing 200 grand a year." She's like, "I don't do that." But I just think it's crazy. Like people make these choices. And I think, you know, you said then around like, how do I make all that money doing something you love?

Sometimes people do get jobs that they love, but don't make the money like nursing. My friend loved to be a nurse. It was her dream since a child, but she makes 32 grand a year. And I'm not saying that's bad 'cause I think that's a really good salary by the way. Like my mom's average salary was like 24 grand most of her life. Like if you're earning 30, 40 grand, you're earning more than average in the UK wage. And I think people need to recognize that because I do think there's a lot of like hustle and grind on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok or whatever,

where they're making like 200 grand and they're 18 years old. And I'm like, no, that is not normal. But we're just more accessible to it now. We just see it more. Whereas, yeah, a 30, 40 grand salary, that is a good salary. What's your end game when it comes to the business?

It's a tough question because typically what people do is sell. They sell their businesses. I'd like to sell. I would prefer to sell into a business that would give us and my team the opportunity to go and work on bigger brands, you know, your Amazons and your Apple and things like that.

And I would just merge into that. It's not like I plan to sell and go and swan off in the Maldives. I plan to just go and do something bigger and give people bigger opportunities. So I would love, to be honest, to merge with a company that does something the opposite to me. So one of the things I've always learned in business is don't hire people that can do the same thing as you. Hire people that can do things you can't. Because if there's a day where something comes up and you can't answer the question or do that thing...

you've got someone next to you who can. So what I would love to do is partner with another brand similar to us, another agency and go, right, you can do the thing we can't, we can do the thing you can't, let's partner and build something bigger and I'll go and own a small share of a bigger pie. That's my dream. That's what I would love to do. I'm mostly about the work. I love the job. I get passionate about it. Like the fact I can sit in front of a client now and go,

this is how I can make your lives amazing and fun and you know come up with marketing strategies that is going to blow your mind that excites me rather than anything else nice so let's say you do you end up I don't know either getting private equity bought out or most strategic acquisition or something and I don't know let's say they offer 200 million and now you've got 200 million in the bank and you never need to work again um how would you spend your time I'd go start another business nice yeah

In the same industry or different? Probably different. I think now that I work on a lot of e-commerce and retail brands, I've realized I could do that. I actually have a lot of ideas that I would love to get into e-commerce, start building up my own retail brands and things like that. So yeah, so I think I'll probably go down that route.

probably use the money to invest in other business and sit as like a bit of a leader and coach them into doing it. The good thing is now, so right, I've been running this business for three and a half years and we've grown exceptionally fast to the point where we're on lists now of one of the fastest growing businesses. And I believe now I know exactly how to do it, I could grow a lot faster. How mad is that? I don't need to grow any faster because I've grown fast anyway. But now I know exactly how to do it and how not to do it. And

I could teach other people. So I'd love to sit on other businesses, boards, you know, directors, chiefs, whatever it is, and go, I can show you exactly how to run this from P&Ls to operations to processes to sales to whatever it is, products. And yeah, I feel like what I'm doing right now is learning so I can take that somewhere else one day. I'm still only 29. So yeah, I think the opportunity is endless.

Would 16 year old Carrie have been surprised by that answer? You've got 200 million in the bank and you'd be like, yeah, I can start another business. Yes. Hello, Michael.

oh my God, like I can't, I, I'm very reflective. I'm very, um, um, grateful. Like I'm, I'm that type of person. Like I, like still to this day, like I go home to my mom who still lives in a council estate. Like I, we're still in that. I'm not yet out of that. I don't necessarily live in a beautiful house with, you know, private land or anything like that. That's not where I am right now. I'm still building. So I, I might be making millions, um,

but it's the business that's making money. It's not me personally. But I know one day I'm set up for success. I could sell this business, which I've already had 40 offers. I have weekly offers coming into my inbox of other agencies wanting to buy us, private equity. I've had people saying like they would offer us, you know, 20, 30 million. So I'm there that I could make that money, but we're not there yet.

Like I haven't achieved my mission and, you know, I think maybe hopefully in five years' time, which is crazy because I'll only be, what, 34, 35, hopefully I will be in a position where I come and speak to you and my mum's out like counsellors today, you know? Yeah.

So yeah, so I'm not there yet. But I know that I'm set up now for success. And if, you know, if the world ended tomorrow, if Rise at 7 does not exist tomorrow because something crazy happens, recession, whatever, I now know I can go do something else again. I have full confidence in myself. Yeah, like the skills you built up along the way. Yeah, and that's where experience comes in. Like I wouldn't be able to go and do that if I didn't have this. You mentioned that the mission isn't yet complete. What is the mission or the purpose behind this stuff?

Businesses have mission, but I have my own personal mission. I guess my own personal mission is success for me is freedom of other people's opinions and my own mind. And I'm not yet free of that.

How do I get there? How do I get free of my own mind? So my own, you know, when you're beating yourself up one night or whatever it is, I'm not there yet. I'm still, I still beat myself up. That weren't good enough. You know, that idea is not good enough, blah, blah. I'm not yet free of my own mind and I'm not yet free of other people's opinions. So I think I've got a long way to get there. That's what success looks like for me. That's my mission. And I think I'll be able to get there through just learning.

learning about myself, learning about people, learning about business and being, and then, you know, hopefully I'll be 40, 50 and go, I'm free of my mind. I don't need to tell myself I'm not good enough. Do you know what I mean? Because I know that I am. I know that I've built it. So yeah, I think that's what success looks like personally for me. But I also have this like mission statement that I want to give confidence to do, to other people to do things differently. I think for me, that's what I realized about myself is,

I always used my confidence to do things differently in my career, in university, in marketing and the way that I tweeted that woman to get that job, I had the confidence to do that and

And I want to, my job and my purpose here is to give other people that confidence to do things differently. So yeah, there's those two things that I'm kind of focusing on at the minute. Fantastic. And they're unmeasurable, right? Yeah, exactly. I think that's a great place to end this. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any final piece of advice? Let's say someone's listened to this whole conversation on YouTube or on whatever podcast platform and they just really resonate with what you say. Any final kind of parting advice for the listeners? Don't let anyone tell you no, not even yourself.

Love it. Thank you so much.

All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode.

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