From redundancy to creating social good with John Gilbert, Founder and MD of eski

In this week’s edition of the Beautiful Business podcast, Yiuwin Tsang talks to John Gilbert about the journey he’s been on from being made redundant to setting up eski - an award-winning creative media and marketing agency which has the primary goal of achieving social good. 

John became disillusioned with the retail sector and felt that he needed to find new projects which actually meant something. This led him to carve out a more purposeful and focused niche with eski, with the aim to create real impact and purpose, whatever the risks might be along the way. 

John Gilbert is the founder and managing director of eski, a media agency specialising in working with the NHS, charities and purposeful businesses to create social good through campaigns and filmmaking. 

He and his team have produced several national and international award-winning films and campaigns on subjects including mental health, organised crime, sexual exploitation, cancer prevention and domestic abuse. 

Transcript

Yiuwin Tsang:

Hello and welcome to the beautiful business podcast. Beautiful business as a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and softly grown. Hi folks. 

Welcome to this week's episode of the beautiful business podcast. My name is you and sang part of the beautiful business team, and I was lucky enough to be joined by John Gilbert from eski media in this episode

John Gilbert is the founder and managing director of eski, a media agency specialising in working with NHS police charities, and purposeful businesses to create social good through campaigns and filmmaking. 

By combining behavioural sciences and CO production methods with young people. He and his team have produced several national and international award winning films and campaigns on subjects including mental health, organised crime, sexual exploitation, cancer prevention and domestic abuse. 

This was a fantastic interview, John's a fantastic guy. And there's some amazing advice he shared throughout this chat. 

So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Firstly, let's talk a little bit about the journey you've been on with eski. So going from redundancy to growing eski to creating social good, so let's start from the start. So it's a good place to go. Tell us about how you came about founding eski? What was the Genesis story here? 

John Gilbert:

I wish I could give you a more remarkable story than this. But I can't. I did a degree I did something called the knowledge transfer partnership, which was a fantastic opportunity to do straight out of university where basically I was plunked into an engineering firm and got to tinker around with it and marketing and HR and a few things to pay for me to do a master's that takes me through all kinds of things. 

But the downside to it was knowing that at the end of that two years, I wouldn't have a job. So I was technically made redundant because it was two years, as was the law back then. But I knew it was coming. And my plan was to get a job. 

So I took my redundancy money, printed some business cards, joined a business networking club and thought well, there might be other small businesses that want an inexperienced guy tinkering around in marketing, and eventually I found some, I think what I maybe lacked in experience I didn't have academically I had quite a lot of qualification, but also had a bit of naivety and enthusiasm. 

So I started kind of working with other business owners who were trying to grow but couldn't afford their own marketing manager, basically. And then I did what a lot of people do within the career, which was then thought, I've done that now what can I do that's a little bit more exciting. 

And I looked at what I was interested in like music I was interested in like comedy. So I sort of got into events marketing. From there, I founded a comedy festival in my city, which still runs today, it's 17 years, I don't want it myself and I gave it away a few years ago. And that was really good in the sense of I was enjoying what I was doing felt like a level of competence for it was earning enough money to survive if you see what I mean. 

What was missing was the sense that what I was doing actually meant something if you like. I didn't found Eskimo Soup in the sense that it was. I merged my company together with a company called Eskimo Soup, and another company called C media so that we had five equal partners to run as a full agency, which seemed like a sensible thing to do at the time.  I'd been on my own for years, having business partners was good for my mental health, it was time my second son had just been born. And we were all very similar age, similar kind of backgrounds and had our differences in terms of work ethic and, and a few other things. 

But we found our way through that, and operated as an agency for six years doing a bit of everything for everybody. And our two main segments that we found ourselves in was the NHS and health marketing and retail. And the two things were so clearly ops and the commercial driver of the business was working for shopping centres. 

And at one point, we have 19 shopping centres on the box, which meant that we could pretty consistent plan the work that was coming in because we knew that there would be 19 Christmas campaigns 19 Easter campaign 19, back to school campaigns, etc, etc. And there was no shortage of shiny stuff to sell people. 

Problem was I wasn't switched on to this at all interested in buying goods or go spend a little time in shopping centres as possible. And but I was running these accounts with a bit of insincerity in what I was doing. 

And then we have this smaller part of the business around health. And we were doing campaigns around working with specialists of different forms of cancer on survivors of cancer and I was getting to meet people who had been through such terrible times in their life where there was still such a long period of time, didn't think they were going to make it out of the other side, but wanting to come forward and share their story to try and help somebody else spot the early symptoms that they should go to the GP this is quite some time ago, around the time that the declared on cancer campaign was being developed on a national level. So when I attended meetings, on the Retail side, say this promotion has generated this extra number in a column. And I was kind of feeling interested in that kind of thing, juxtapose with a meeting where I would go and meet with some clinical professionals who would say, as a result of this, we've probably said, this amount of lies, that column of numbers are much smaller numbers was the thing that really kind of little payment to me, and I was really interested in that side of things. So that's kind of how it started. 

We realised as a team that we really had different visions for where we wanted to go with the company. So after a bit of pulling on my partner, eventually, let me leave. And it was very amicable. 

And literally, you know, a building that we rented at the time moved upstairs, I was there on the 31st of March, and then on the first of April, moved upstairs and started again, they returned a minority share. And within the business, I took the near meskin lawsuit, which is nearly no longer usually rebranded as esci. And this year, but we are the same thing. And I took one client, which was one of our NHS clients, and none of the team and effectively started again, so that was getting on for 10 years into my career at that point, but it's 1011 years, by which point I had the kind of the benefit of so much more experience, made so many mistakes along. And the current company is that second incarnation. And we've been in this form now for eight and a half years. So that was, I mean, it was a long answer to your question, but bear in mind, I've just covered 20 years. 

Yiuwin Tsang:

Yeah, absolutely. And thanks, thank you very much. There's so much in there, John, there's so much in there, like there's a couple of inflection points, as opposed just to go back into that, and one of them, which is so vivid, I imagine, you know, in the morning, you go and meet your retail clients, and you're talking about footfall or how many, whatever the metric is for retail kind of sales, versus as you say, you know, speaking with health practitioners, whatever might be on the other side, talking about the impact that you've had on people's lives, that must have been so stark, so I can completely understand, you know, that kind of thought process you went through and the decision that you made, but that's a big shot, I did not realise that that was the kind of the carving, if you like, of eski, or Eskimo soup at the time away from this kind of, I suppose is rump of relatively predictable, stable, you know, income solid clients. 19 is a big number. 

And as you say, you know, I imagine that the revenue was relatively evenly distributed across 19. So, you know, quite safe kind of businesses that were done moving out into something else. And I know that throughout the conversations we've had about how important it is to have a solid commercial kind of enterprise and that kind of drive. And that's where you kind of drive that kind of profit to fuel your journey to creating kind of impact. How did you reconcile that? 

John Gilbert:

You know, it was a hell of a risk to kind of move away taking the one client? I mean, was it just that as you say, the fire, the burning to create to work in that space to create impact was sufficient for you to go out? It's worth it to me? Yeah, it didn't really feel like a risk, if I'm honest. I mean, the thing is, if you go from running a team to about 20, servers, we had a couple of subsidiaries time, and to go to just having just been me with one mouse to feed Allah for about a week now, sort of, and it works as well. If it didn't feel that difficult, it said a second time around, we grew more quickly. And with the benefit of that experience, and the client that we had returned were very pioneering in their approach in that we would work with a comms and marketing team who would specify this is what we need. But having relationships that chief executive at chair level within organisations, what I call idealists, who have people with the means the aspiration, the inspiration and the resources to try and change their part of the world. It meant that collectively, we could come up with ideas and they'll say out find a pot of money to give that a try. And they would because that relationship was in place where they would trust me not to just come back three months later and go Yeah, it work flexibly and money would always make sure that different degrees of cost, depending on the initiative. Yeah, but no, I don't remember ever feeling like the age. 

Sometimes you just you can overanalyze situations, but you know what the body's amazing, because the gut usually does that for you. Yeah. You just can't do it. Again, I know this is cliche, but the reason it's cliche is true. 

Yiuwin Tsang:

Yeah, indeed. I love that term. Idealists are the people who got the resources who've got the ambition and the inspiration, in order to change our world. That's a really lovely turn of phrase. And I really, really like it. And I guess it kind of takes to the next part of the question that I had around how do you kind of build a kind of commercial value within your agency? Or how do you give yourself the best opportunity to achieve those kind of commercial goals? And it sounds like certainly, in the early days, strengthen the relationship that you have with the right people within those client groups. And that's it.

John Gilbert:

 And that's still the answer to and I think that I guess most people would say that in a service to service industry that we can trace back all of our best projects to probably a handful of people now doesn't mean that they would directly be the client, but they may have been one that gives an introduction and this this kind of asset can experience really who I've talked to a lot on this podcast about those sorts of previous discussions we've had about privilege, and that, once you're there, and you're in that position, you do have a responsibility to do it. But you can dream. And I guess the public sector has got this perception that it's in nowhere as an entrepreneurial. And a lot of times, it's not a lot of times it's frustrating and react cracy. And you think my wife works in public sector, and she tells me things have to bite my lips, or just stop saying, well, we'll just change it, because I appreciate it isn't like that. But there are a few people who have very entrepreneurial and kind of deceived the partnership opportunities. And that's saying around, sometimes it's easier to, to ask for forgiveness than permission, well, if they're in a senior, enough position yet everybody else somebody, but they can actually make those take a bit of a knock upon it, it's a measured risk, sometimes they can do that. So we've been very fortunate to have those relationships. And then I've made sure that we've never, we just don't let people down. And we do what we say we're going to do. It's quite interesting sometimes, because we can be quite independent at times as the client, whilst we're interdependent, the various stakeholders, the one that's actually paid for it is kind of, we'll just leave it to it. And let us know every now and again, how it's going, which is strange, because you've got nobody pushing you, you've got to be entirely self motivated, which is one of our values really, is the way that it goes back down to an individual level is that there will not always be somebody pushing you, but you'll always be there. You'll know at the end of the week, if you've done your best if you've got things to be proud of. And I guess that's sometimes it's been in relationships with clients. Yeah, no indeed. And D that I love the fact that is baked into your values as well. It's kind of bring you just make throw this together. Yeah, well, there we go. But it's

Unknown Speaker  11:39  

the benefit of having been around for a few years, you start to connect the dots. Yeah, Indeed, indeed. I remember my kids school Tobias a school and one of their kind of like values and of course the the best that you can be, then if you kind of have that attitude, or if that's part of the values of the culture that you're trying to bring into your business. It's helpful thing keep on saying, well, obviously my my boys Marvin inspiration to me when I realised but another conversation I had with him was, it was when Boris Johnson was getting absolutely roasted about having these pies and stuff like this. And he was listening to the news and the radios off. This was for me, and the missus would listen to it. And the word integrity or lack of kept on popping up. And he asked me, he said, Doug, what does integrity mean? And this is my like, famous kind of dad moment. And it was a device integrity is when you do the right thing, even if nobody sees you do it. And I feel like that's the kind of if you can approach your work in a similar sort of way, if you can, you know, try and generate the best results. Even if it doesn't seem like the client is looking, then you're in a good place, it will be no big surprise to find that that is also one of our values, excuse the company. And on the other effectiveness, self motivation and kinship and integrity. We have to use kinship was basically the facade was out to get.

I love it. That's fantastic. So yeah, the last part of this, and I know that in the beautiful business community, you talked a little bit about potentially bringing some investment into esky. And I was just very curious to know what has that journey kind of been like for you in terms of bringing somebody else in? Because you've talked about how you kind of separated out from your previous kind of funding team? And you've been on this journey? You've obviously brought some people along on your way? And what's it been like bringing somebody in or potentially bringing somebody into the business? And what kind of effect does it have on the wider team? Okay, so I think my journey on this is quite unique, and probably not one that people would recommend. Basically, we have a new product that we're developing at the moment, I'll simplify it until we have a new product. And I was asking lots of people for their opinion on it. And everybody was telling me how wonderful it was and how clever it was and how successful it was going to be. And I sort of think had a bit of an interesting close moment. Is everybody telling me what they think I want to hear? So I reconnected with somebody who used to be a mentor of mine, very successful business person, the most driven person I've ever met. And criminally is the CEO of a company that turnover, billions valued billions. And I thought, if somebody is going to tell me that I'm deluding myself, it's him. So I asked for half an hour for a coffee 10 minutes into the discussion of me explaining what I was planning to do. He said, I'd invest in that I'd like to invest in that. So we'll check some of those phones off. Now, the long story short, is that we're talking the moment about that, rather than being a separate company being an esky. And the reason for that is because he wants to be medium to long term invested in the success of our company. 

And if I'm honest, because I think this is like both an insult and a compliment in that he sees me as somebody with a lot of potential I still haven't realised.

So having grown businesses he's done whereas I've always been in my relative comfort zone of running a small business with a really great team and we all get on and, and I can do that for the next 20 years and then retire, but I know me, I would sort of wonder what would happen if we get really pushed it so I recognise that I need somebody to motivate me to push me to push the business forward to the air to achieve our social goals be to support the career of the rest of the team, that CD there's all kinds of reasons to do that. So it wasn't by design that we decided to go out to markets and do that, at the time of this recording, we're still going through this, but I'm expecting it to go through and the role will be non operational, it will be purely strategic around sort of taking us through the growth process because of the product that we're investing in. If I choose well, when that achieves what we say, it's going to do that we are going to be in a period of growth we've not yet experienced. So I don't want that. With my limited experience of being in this comfort zone. I don't want that to be an inhibitor for it. So if that means new ideas, new skills, new people, we can do that. But we'll do it in a way that supports the rest of the team. So I've just been open wouldn't have communication with the team at any point on this. And I'll say that if you want to know anything of my parting chatbot just let me know. But unfortunately, they don't trust me because we are pretty open book in and around that. So the idea is that the path of growth, which is new territory for us, and we'll still make mistakes, but hopefully we will make as many mistakes because we've got the benefit of somebody who's acting there is an advisor who's been there done that boxy shape, you see what I mean? So it's, yeah, it seemed like a really good opportunity for us. But it wasn't something that we set out to do. It's been a byproduct of just getting in touch with somebody. We've talked a lot about relationships on this podcast. And it's so true, isn't it that you can read recently reconnected with a few people I've not seen for 1015 years, just by doing what you said you were going to do so simple as that. Just do the right thing, do what you say you're going to do. People remember that. And when you need them, when you need somebody to help you step out your comfort zones, take something to that next level that you can hopefully call upon. That's fantastic, and absolutely lovely as well a lovely heartwarming story, just me again in a year.

 was gonna say, you know, I fairplay to you in the sense that I've had the discussion with my co founder in terms of you know, what happened our business five years old about what happens next? Do we kind of kick on? Do we go from like six people to however many and things like this, and you're right, the people are more comfortable with old problems and the old new solutions. So you know, whilst and that's where, you know, we find ourselves right now we're quite comfortable being six in the in or whatever it might be. And as you say, quite happy to do this for next 20 years and then retire. And it's all good, but having that drive to do it. And almost I'm that conscious decision that we're going to go for this. How can we make it happen? Who can we speak to to help us get there? And there was a decision that was made, right, something that made you think we've got something here, there's something really exciting, let's go for it. Yeah. And timing is crucial. Since I've listened to a few of your podcast, fantastic set of guests, it's quite daunting, and but the thing is we going on this journey for business, really, in the business owner, or a member of a team, we can paint this picture of this kind of swashbuckling adventure that we go with its ups and its downs. And it's okay. Because whatever analogy you want to use, that the reality is that we don't if you're not careful, you have you lived through your business. And the timing of that is so important when I started my company way back when, and become father to two children quite soon afterwards, as well. When I asked people for advice about who'd been successful and been a bit further down the line, what mistakes they've made, and so on, the theme of that stood out to me was people saying, I wish I spent more time with my kids. And there were quite a lot of destroying marriages along the way. So I've always followed the business cannot compromise these things, because I'm seeing people who are very wealthy, but they're not particularly happy. Although they've had to rebuild their life in order to find their happiness. That's not to say you're doomed, if you have good relationships, it's the most cost. But I just stated that as like, well. Okay, well, we'll do that then. So, in a sense, it's inhibited the business because I've not done the travelling and the there's always been a decision before we do this, what impact is this going to have on me sounds selfish, and my relationships now that my children are growing up, and there's a bit more freedom to deal with emotions, often the business as well. So she's really supportive. I don't make any big decisions without consulting with her, although usually she just says, you know, we do not trust you in that sense, which means which is great, because we know about shared responsibility for when our cocked up.

Got the Yeah, but we're now in in place to do that. So wherever you and your business partner about anything new career, I mean, it's not a race is it? There's times when to kind of think, well, this is a lifestyle business is serving me right now. We can still grow on and still have a good lifestyle. And then there's gonna be some times where you know what, I'm gonna really go for it in a couple of years and see how it goes. You know, I don't like it and step up. Yeah. and days and days. And again, it's a kind of reconfirming, this approach and Paul Bulpitt, one of the founders, Wow, we got really, really well we talked about this a lot about the importance and we almost kind of bake this in, like a lot of the feedback that we have, when we're interviewing or the founders of, you know, 10 plus employees or that kind of on that stage of their business, a reoccurring theme was family first, and the value that they placed on, you know, on the important things in their lives. And, you know, if we were going to do a straw poll, you know, what the most important thing in your lives across you know, most of the people within this community, not very many of them will put their business has been the most important thing in their lives. And if you ask most people, generally family friends, you know, that's they are the important things in this conversation I had with Paul and it was as frightening as it was kind of reassuring as well. So he's a little bit ahead of me in terms of age of the kids and stuff, but they talked about how they measure the time that they've got with their kids in summers because you know,

And there's all kinds of schools and things that isn't everybody busy and all the rest of it summer is when you get the chance to really build some those memories out. You've got the time together and you know, the weather and all the rest of it. And then you think, Well, how many summers have I got left with Tobias, my boy being at home, and it's like, Oh, my God, I've got to make that time count. You know, you've got to make that time count. And it's so true. You know, there will come a point when you can, you know, put the hammer down on work and go for the growth or whatever it might be, but it can't be at the fall of the other things that are important in your life. Yeah, no, no, it's a good way to put it. I mean, my eldest son is probably for the summers now he's joining the military, but my youngest son as soon as they're off to Glastonbury next year, so I'm still making the most of them are fantastic, fantastic, and well done for getting those tickets as well. We got lucky.

Thank you so much, John, from eski for taking the time to take this interview and sharing your advice and your experiences. Thank you for joining us for this week's beautiful business podcast. Beautiful business as a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautiful business.uk