S3, E9: Entrepreneurship by Sam Watson Founder of The Agenzy

Sam shares his unique journey of leaving university life in Paris to set up his own business at the age of 20 years old. Sam founded The Agenzy which works with clients to attract Gen-Z consumers taking into account the latest digital marketing trends.  

Since being in business Sam has had some huge successes including 1200% client-increased revenue and 300% increase in app users in 6 months!

Get ready to be inspired…..5-4-3-2-1. 

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Connect with Sam Watson:

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Email: sam@theagenzy.co.uk

Connect with Vicki Main - Podcast Host & Co-Author of The Momentum Mindset Book:

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Click here to purchase a copy of The Momentum Mindset Book by Vicki Main and Jonathan S.Bean.

Transcript

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They would often make fun joke that I was working for free at the time. And that really irritated me because I thought that's totally the wrong narrative that young people should be having about getting involved in business early, getting experience and just trying to make yourself more employable. Welcome to the Get Unstuck Fast Viscosity podcast brought to you by VLM training and coaching specialists across the UK and Australia. Hosted by me, Vicky Maine. Are you a business owner, leader, or executive? Have you ever felt stuck or disappointed where your life or business is heading? Do you ever feel overwhelmed, compare yourself to others or feel like you're swimming in treacle at times? This podcast is here to help you get unstuck fast from viscosity to achieving escape velocity and expanding your knowledge, our guests on the show. We'll share practical tips and real life experience about how they got out of negative situations or circumstances to live their best life on their terms. We will be sharing real life stories from real people doing some incredible things. Stay tuned for our next guest. Welcome to season three, episode nine of the Get Unstuck Fast Viscosity Podcast. I'm your host, Vicki Mayne. And today we have a special guest, Sam Watson, who's the CEO and founder of the agency On The Show. Welcome, Sam. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted you're on the show today. And can you tell our listeners about your career history and what you're doing now? Yeah, I'll tell you a bit of the story before I get into it. I was at the stage, it was a couple of years ago, I was applying to university. I wanted to do a business and French degree. My mom's French and the French side of it was always a bit cheeky. I thought that it would be a bit of an easy university experience, but the business side of things hadn't studied business, knew nothing about business and never worked in a business. So I thought I really need to bolster my personal statement. What am I going to do? So I emailed the startup. I said, look, I work for free. I want to get a bit of experience. And then that business really was helped by me a lot. We did some awesome work together. And I went back to school and I would talk about the work we were doing and the move from an intern to someone's take up a bit more. Yeah. Responsibility within the team and my school friends were really negative about it. They would often make fun joke that I was working for free at the time and that really irritated me because I thought that's totally the wrong narrative that young people should be having about getting involved in business early, getting experience and just trying to make yourself more employable. So I started a podcast. It was called Enterprising Gen Z. Basically, I spoke to entrepreneurs. Obviously, Vicky, you came on it as well, as I'm sure you remember. Yeah, and that grew really nicely. And then we had companies myself. Well, I had companies come to me just to say, Sam, look, can you help out with marketing our podcast or can you help out with marketing our business towards more Gen Zs? And I was at university studying in Paris at the time. I decided to do go to business school in Paris, and then all of a sudden I got so many inquiries, I got so much business, and I actually made my first hire while I was at university. And then I realized university's clearly not right for me. I've got something which I really wanna work on. This is my passion, it's what I do, what I love. And I was enjoying it much more than university. But most importantly, I was learning a lot more working in my business than I was at university. So then I dropped out and then moved back to the UK and here I am now. The agency, now we rebranded recently and repositioned ourselves. We started off as like a TikTok agency, but the problem is it's slightly too niche, I think. And I also really enjoy other types of marketing, like event marketing and email marketing. And as we grew out the team, everybody has a different skill set. So we incorporated new services and now we're at the point where we're totally full service. So our spin on things is we help brands become more dynamic, more youthful, more creative in their marketing, just because the whole team's in their twenties. So I'm 20, the eldest person in the team is 26, 27, I believe. So we are, we're talking about who's, we're the ones creating a trend. We're the one with a demographic, which is like creating all the, all the digital marketing trends at the moment. So it's great to have a marketing team that's at the forefront of that. So that's a bit about what I do and what the business does. I know I've waffled on a bit. No, absolutely Sam. And I love. Seeing your LinkedIn posts about you really hit the spot for me where you talk about real problems that business owners have, and today I was, I was looking at one of your posts and you talked about LinkedIn creators, about what they've done and feelings of, and you'd mentioned about how you have a great successful business and you've grown it from nothing to what it is today. But I think you made the point of people need to stop showcasing what salary they're on and actually really for me was about sharing the value, what people bring as well, instead of talking about the financial side. Do you want to share a bit more about that? Yeah. So I think my early experience of entrepreneurship was I was on LinkedIn and I would see all these entrepreneurs talking about how fun and how amazing it is to run a business. And if there's one thing I can reiterate is that running a business, I've had so much fun. I learn new things every single day, but the problem is, I think on LinkedIn now, we're seeing more and more agency owners who are making more money and they're sharing about the sharing about it too much. And for me personally, I think salary is a taboo subject. I would never tell anybody how much I earn or. My parents also, they never told me how much they are for me. I think it's just a topic, but especially on LinkedIn, where there are so many younger entrepreneurs looking up to these people. And when they're bragging about how much they are, I just think it's in, I think it's slightly import taste. And I think as if I put myself back a year ago, if I saw that. I know how much I was making back then. I would look at it and think it's a bit inadequate. It's just, it's not as supportive as it can be. I think LinkedIn is a platform where people empower each other and people lift each other up and provide more value. So for example, I know that a lot of the posts that I interact with are how to improve on certain. Things and how to make yourself professionally better. But I don't see the value in anybody sharing their salary. Interestingly. I know you mentioned some stats where you talk about that. You've had some, as you quote, pretty mental results in terms of your business, where you talk about, you've got, you've increased client revenue by 1, 200 percent in a year while working with yourself, you've had a 300 percent increase in app users within six months for companies, and most importantly, Percent client satisfaction, pretty cool stats. And I'm curious, obviously you've hit the nail on the head in terms of the market that you're reaching and you found a, I guess, a niche market. Who inspired you to do what you do? That's such a good question. So in terms of results, I'm very proud of those. And we're really proud of those. And in terms of who's inspired me. So my family, my grandparents on both sides. around businesses. I was always very aware of entrepreneurship in my family. I've always been so entrepreneurial. So I was born in 2003. I launched my first business in 2007 when I was four years old and that business was the shiny stuff club. So I hired all my family. So my grandparents, my parents, my uncles and aunties, and they would find me shiny things in the garden, like little stones or shiny shoes or bits of metal. And I'll try and sell it for a profit. It wasn't a very high. Revenue business, I could admit that now, but I think I've always had that little entrepreneurship side to me. My grandparents always made me watch Dragon's Den when I was younger, like growing up and I liked the one Christmas present that I always remember is Duncan Bannatyne's autobiography, who was a dragon on Dragon's Den while I was little, I read his book, I must've been 11 or 12. I remember my family took me on holiday and I just spent the whole time reading his book. And I think what attracted me to it. What's the freedom that not having to work for somebody else in your life, even though there's a lot more stressful entrepreneurship, it was like that side of it, which really inspired me and also working towards a purpose, which you truly believe in. I think that inspired me most about, especially Duncan's journey. And my dad worked for Virgin and he had access to Richard Branson and then a lot of other cool entrepreneurs. And I think just that exposure, which I know is something that I'm very privileged to have. And not everybody has that. And of course, I feel really privileged for that. But that exposure, early exposure to entrepreneurship. Really changed my perspective on life because I think growing up, I've always been very self reflective. I've always pondered, you know, the meaning of things and why we do things. And I've always wanted to work under my own steam, do things the way that I think are best, and also work towards something that I'm truly passionate about. And that's what entrepreneurship has allowed me to do. Sure. I love that. And I can totally resonate with what you're saying. Congratulations on your first business at four years old. It's wonderful. I did a dabble in entrepreneurship in my childhood, and I was either selling tickets for events that I was running as a child, or I had a perfume range at one point and I was. Doing a lot of stuff within, I was selling mixtapes at one point randomly in the eighties and stuff. But I love what you said there about Duncan Bannatyne, how you were, you immersed yourself in his book and you were able to see and reflect on what he's done and his purpose. And I think what you highlighted was incredibly, it resonated with me, where you talk about freedom in terms of being a business owner. Now, I didn't start my first business until I was 38. So kudos to you for actually doing what you did. You are now 19 and then 20 and doing what you're doing, because I guess of being in business was easy. Everybody would do it. But the fact that you can create freedom for yourself to live the life you want to live. I'm curious, what is it? What is it you really love about working for yourself apart from the freedom to operate and work with amazing clients? I think it's a really tough question because there are so many great things about what I do. I think one of my favorite thing is honestly meeting really interesting people. The amount of really interesting conversations I have with other founders and people who are really experienced in commerce, that really broadens the minds and that I love. Because I've always been a massive networker. I went to my first networking event at 17 and meeting people and having interesting conversations. I love that so much. Every week, I have a set amount of networking calls that I know I go on every week, just because I love hearing stories and interesting things from people. I think another thing I love is I'm very aware that a lot of the work we do is really at the. Cutting edge of digital marketing on what digital marketing looks like in 2023, and we're always working on the latest trends. The latest ideas were really at the forefront of what we do. I love that because it means that so my parents both in marketing and those conversations that we have over the phone and that kind of thing about what we're doing and teaching people about the new trends and that kind of thing. I find it so interesting school for me was yeah. Quite a tough period because I often didn't find value in what I was learning. And I often had, I've can remember arguments with argument sounds a bit harsh, but discussions with my teachers about why we are learning what we're learning, because I don't think a lot of the stuff we learned had any real world value. I feel like now that stuff I'm still, I call myself a lifelong learner and I want to keep learning things. I think if you don't, it's a problem. So I'm always conscious that I want to keep expanding my knowledge. And now I feel like I'm learning things that have actual real world value. And things that I learn, I think, I think it's just really interesting that for me is actually seeing real world value in what I do day to day, compared to when I was at school or university. That's one of the things that I love the most. Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about being a student and I guess lecturers or teachers teaching from the syllabus compared to teaching real life, what's happening in the real world. Now, generally speaking, I think. Teachers or academics or lecturers, whatever you want to call them. They do understand the real world. And I think there's a lot of value that they bring, but I think there is a lot to be said for practical knowledge and putting that theory in a practical application, and I think this is where you've gone and set up your own business and you've actually, you're learning by doing, and I think there's a lot to be said for that. That talks previously about the education system and how there could be some huge. Changes to be had. And I think to a certain extent, there is some of the curriculum probably needs to be carved out and replaced with real world experience and knowledge that they can bring. So I can totally resonate with you with that. Let's talk about. Your role in terms of being a leader and as a CEO and founder, and you are building your team as you go, and I guess in previous jobs that you've been in, since you've left school or perhaps or work experience, what would you say is the toughest thing for a leader at the moment and building a team? It's tough. I guess I have a very different experience doing leadership because I manage people who are everyone's older than me. Everyone's more experienced than I am. Everyone has worked in more jobs than I have. So my experience as a leader is very different. I wouldn't say I'm a traditional leader. I actually think that when it comes to For example, in meetings, I often, I think I'm more of a listener than I am a talker, just because I think it's really important to extract as much information from the people around you. Every person who I hire in the team is smarter than I am. And actually I read a really interesting quote and that it's actually, it's not a weakness to have lots of people. Lots of leaders are threatened by having people in their team who are smarter, but for me, I actually see it as a blessing because again, it goes back to that learning. But then for me being a leader, I think the hardest thing is I have experienced a bit of workplace conflict. and disagreements and managing those is sometimes tricky and it's from somebody who's never really managed a team before. Managing those conflicts is sometimes tough. And as well as a leader, I'm very aware that I've read a brilliant book recently called Decisive and then another book that I can't remember, but it's over there somewhere. I'm actually looking at it, but I can't remember the title of it. It's about different decision models. And that's something that as a leader that I work on all the time. Because being decisive is so important. So that's, yeah, that's the stuff I work on, but I think it's, it's pretty stressful to be honest. I wouldn't say that everyone's cut out for it because it can be very stressful. Yeah. So let's talk about conflict because I'm, funnily enough, I'm doing some research on that subject at the moment. So you've mentioned you have had some conflict within work and disagreements and things. Everybody has hot buttons, right? Things that will trigger them. And we all have them. It just depends on what they could be. And it could be based around belief systems because we're all individuals and we're all different. But what would you say would be a hot button for you and any advice for listeners of how you've dealt with conflict to get to a satisfactory conclusion for both parties? So when you say hot buttons, you mean things that Frustrate me as a, as a leader myself. Yeah, like triggers. So for example, I would be very triggered if I was slogging my goods out, working and doing all these great things for clients. And then there was just more expectations put on me. And then there wasn't even a thank you. I think that I would find that tough eventually. I don't need positive strokes all the time, but I think just even a simple thank you goes such a long way. And I'm very fortunate. The clients I work with are lovely. So I'm, I'm in a very good position, but there must be things that trigger you. Yeah, there are some situations which I can think of immediately. I can think of where things are frustrating me. But I think one of the main things I'm, I'm super open about this. So I'm happy to share it now. My parents were, I'm very lucky to come from parents who managed to put me through private education. And I'm so fortunate again, there's been, I'm acutely aware of the privileged position that I've come from. I'm so aware of it, and that's why I do a lot of work with the education systems, trying to give the opportunity that I was given across the board to everybody. State schools, the same thing, because I know the disparities of disparities. the right word. I know the differences between the education systems, but one of the things that annoyed me is when people and I've had this, I have this. Often people equate my success to private education, having parents who are like high income earners compared to the rest of the population that frustrates me a lot because I know that I've, I've built this myself and I often get people who dismiss that just because. I went through private education that can frustrate me sometimes. And as well, I think the thing that I speak to my team most about is actually openness within the company. I always make sure that everybody treats me, can speak to me as they would a friend. I, the one thing, because obviously I'm new to management and running a business, I'm not pretending that I've got loads of experience in this. One of the things that I always encourage is total openness. So if there is a problem with some of the work that I provided or my management style, my team always pick me up on it. Which is great because we have such an open relationship, but it does bug me when, for example, things happen and it doesn't get led back to me. And then it glows up into something bigger along the line because someone hasn't had, hasn't been able to be open to tell me at the time. So for me, that's something that I always try and encourage. And again, it's all about that, the learning and the feedback loops that we have set up within the business to make sure that there's constant evaluation going on, constant, really great. Job or potentially do or, or try doing this, that kind of thing. Yeah, I really love that. And I love the fact that you encourage transparency within what you do and as a company and the values around it, I think that's really great advice for other people who want to establish a business and really build that really strong culture within it as well. And I think it works both ways. I think if people, staff members feel they can talk to you and be open about There's a potential problem and they may have. Done something as part to, to be part of that you're not gonna come at them with, come on. You know, it's a learning experience as well, and it's, you work together to solve it, and I think that's really great. I've got no doubt your business is gonna go from strength to strength, Sam, just with the fact that you're constantly, you're a lifelong learner. You learn from experience, you've got all these great skills and attributes to bring to it as well. I think you've got huge success ahead of you. Let's talk about mindset. Because I'm curious, what are you fearful of? Okay. Yeah, so that is a big question. So fear of failure for me is massive as well as part of, you talk about my LinkedIn post and that kind of thing, putting myself out online, talking about my views, my opinions on certain things. Everything hits the fan and it all goes wrong. Even the social pressure that I've set myself really can't allow that to happen, if that makes sense. That's something that I think about a lot. So I do have a big fear of failure and the other thing, is, and thankfully I've never had to do this, but it's also because we've got a growing team. I know the team believe in what we have and it's that fear of letting them down if it doesn't work out, which is always in the back of my mind. I'm also conscious that with work, there's things you have to sacrifice to build a business. Alex Hormozy and a couple of other kind of, I guess you call them business influencers like Gary Vee, those kinds of people. They often say that you've almost got to sacrifice the a business just to get off the ground. And I'm conscious actually. I've actually stopped doing this, but I was very, I'm very conscious at the start. I basically lost contact with everybody who was around me at the time. So for example, I left school, launched a business. I didn't speak to any of my school friends for about a year, date nights with my partner stopped, going out with my family, going on holiday stopped, social events stopped, and it was just work and head down. I've now realized a year on, and this is something, this is like quite a raw feeling because it's been something I've really understanding recently. So for example, I haven't seen my grandparents in a few years, which is, I see that as unforgivable just because I just focus on work. And that, that is a, I guess it's a fear of, of not staying in touch with people who you love, and I've experienced recently. So I'm making more effort now in the past couple of months to make sure that I'm still, I have the friends and family social aspects of my life and not just focus on work because I do, sometimes I do look at it and I think, Oh, what have I traded? And I've traded and be spending time with the people I love making memories in my. My teenage years for what it's about really having that balance. So I guess, but now I have a big fear is getting that balance wrong because me as a person, I've always been very on or off fire that I can switch something on or switch something off. I find it very hard to have a middle ground. I don't know if that's something that a lot of entrepreneurs experience, but I've honestly have experienced all my life when it comes to a good example, be the gym. So I go through phases where I'd go to the gym every single day, or I'd run every single day, or I'd go on a diet, a really strict diet, and then I'd just switch it off and it that's, and then it's the same with work. I just switch on bang, 16 hour days, seven days a week. I can do that. And then just if I just try and ease off the gas a little bit, I find it hard to have that middle ground, which actually I'm speaking to a couple entrepreneurship coaches because. Part of me as an entrepreneur, which is quite a negative thing, I think it's obviously something I work on. I feel like this podcast turned into a bit of a therapy session, actually. That's okay. Keep talking. I think having gone through that one experience myself, when I set up my first business in Australia, I was acutely aware if I. Worked to the level I was working at previously in a previous career. It was not going to end well for me in my personal life. So it's that balance and being able to switch off. I wouldn't say work life balance exists personally for me. I think if you enjoy what you do. It doesn't matter when you work, you enjoy what you do and you pick and choose your hours. Like for example, yesterday morning, Sunday morning, I was up at 6am working on something that was on my mind and I knew I needed to get it out this morning, first thing. So I woke up early, sat at my computer and did that for an hour on a Sunday morning randomly. And I was pleased I did it, but I didn't send it till this morning. So it was something that I just felt like I needed to do it there and then. But. Again, I had the day off after that. So it wasn't as if I went out sailing with my partner, Will, and it wasn't as if it impacted my weekend, but I knew I just needed to spend that hour focused attention on that task. But I can totally resonate with what you've said. And it's quite common actually for people to have a fear of failure or even rejection, but interestingly enough, some people get fearful of massive success and that can then block that and hinder their success levels as well. And I don't know if you've come across people like that, but I've certainly. I've probably done it myself, being fearful of massive success and thought, Oh, I'm not, because then it would take me away from time from my children. Do you know what I mean? At the time when they were growing up. But so you read Jonathan Bean and I, we were co authors and we wrote the book called The Momentum Mindset. And I wondered, you've read our book. First of all, what did you think of it? And. Can you share any tips about how you've dealt with setbacks and not given up in resilience? Because I talk a lot about that in the book. So first and foremost, love the book. We recommend it to anybody listening to the podcast. I think so. I've actually, I've got the of me now, just cause I highlighted a couple of sections that I personally found really useful. So the barbell strategy, when we're talking about preparation, that really helped me. And it's something that I've incorporated like into our company risk registers. This goes back to the old adage of fail. And I had a DT teacher who was this, an Irish guy, Lisa Levin, this amazing guy, but honestly one of a lot of sense, we all found it quite funny, but it was, the more you know, the more you know, the more you know how to use, the more you know, which is, it became a bit of a joke among classmates, but it brings true, because especially with this part of the book that I'm talking about, Barbell Strategy, the It's all about preparing for every eventuality. And that's really helped me because there have been things that I know are going to happen within the business, bad things, which happen within the business. And it's almost like I've put them off. But now with the barbell strategy, writing down every eventuality, which can happen, writing down what I'm going to do, what goes from there, if anything happens, has been really useful for me. Yeah, thank you. That's a really great insight. And I think failure to prepare, plan to fail. And I think looking at what could be ahead in the future, who knew that we'd all be on a global pandemic and lockdown at one stage. And at the time I was living in Australia, I was working full time in my own company as a director. And yeah, that business scaled because it was a lot of online training. But yet my other, my entertainment business, the DJ business that I had flatlined. Because of that time, you can't necessarily foresee a global pandemic, but looking at potentially looking at different revenue streams and looking at ways to bring in income streams to minimize that is, is definitely something I would encourage in the future as well. Um, thank you for your feedback about the book. Um, I've certainly, for me, when I wrote it with Jonathan, who's an incredible, incredibly talented writer, when I was writing the book, I wanted to put down insights into. Working with coaching clients over the years and it, then the book formed and it evolved and Jonathan brought his real experience and life lessons into it as well, so we're very proud of what we've done, but I guess it's, you're only as good as your last project really, isn't it? And it's, we're certainly looking at other projects in the future and looking at where we go from here. But finally, what sort of, what's the bravest and scariest thing that you've ever done apart from setting up a business? Yeah, it's got to be dropping out of university. That was such a massive decision for me because it was actually, it was a goal and a dream of mine to study at that particular university I went to. And it was a target that I'd really set myself. And so the university I went to, it's one of those ones which is really tough to get into. And when I got the email, it was my last day of sixth form. And I got the email and they also offered me a scholarship as well. So that for me was just like the best news on earth. I was so happy. But I think then having the thought of I should really drop out or I should really stop this experience and then move back to the UK, leaving behind all of those amazing friends that I'd made during my time at university. That was really tough. And it was one of the big things for me about university was my family has always been very academically minded. So doing well at school was always really important. And it was really scary having the conversation of, well, I'm going to not pursue academia anymore because I think I can run this business. I can make it work. And that was a really scary decision for me to make, but yeah, that was tough. And there was a lot of back and forth. There was a lot of debating time, which happened still now. I sometimes look and think that was a really tough decision. Am I still sure I made the right one? And I always come back to myself and think, yes. I made the right decision, but it was tough and it was scary and it was, yeah, it was, it's one, it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make, but I'm very glad I made it. Yeah. And you talked earlier about being decisive and at least you've made a decision to step out of university for now. There's nothing to say that you couldn't go back in 10 years from now and decide. Exactly. Look at your degree and then you might end up doing a master's and going from there. I didn't actually go to university until I was 28. And then I got a first class degree. I was ready to study. I wasn't ready to study at 18, 19 and go to uni. In fact, I actually failed one of my A levels back then. And then it took me another 10 years to go back into study, but I was ready for it then. And then I went on to teach myself. But I think there's, it's gotta be the right timing. And for you, it clearly wasn't the right time, but you've made some amazing friends from the experience. So do you still keep in touch with them? The French friends? A hundred percent. Yeah, it's always good to give them a ring and practice my French. Cause I'm very aware that they get lost here by the day, but no, I am very jealous because at the time of recording, obviously it's the Rugby World Cup over in Paris, and I know just next to my flat, there's all sorts of stuff going on. So I do, I watch the rugby and I'm just thinking, ah, Wish I never left. I want to be back there watching the rugby. Well, well, listen, the thing is, at least you made a decision. And often, how often do people through life not make a decision and then regret it years later? You made the decision. You could always go back in the future, but you're also gaining some amazing life experience doing what you're doing now. There's always an opening in the future. Can you share with listeners some tips about being positive and optimistic and how you would say that you have the momentum mindset and tips for listeners? So in terms of being positive, I always look at things and there's always a silver lining with everything. So it's a very specific story about this, which is we had a client. A few months ago, he decided to leave and it hit me really hard at the time because it was one of our best clients. It was one of our biggest clients as well. Actually, in terms of the money they brought into the business, I looked at it and I just thought, Oh, I going to do. This is, I just thought I was going to pack it in because it was such a big revenue loss for us at the time. And then I actually looked at it a bit differently. And so actually we're putting in. A lot of time on this account, the client is going to be sometimes a bit tricky and then also it's actually gives us an opportunity to reposition the business because we were providing an old service to them, which we actually wants to get rid of. So then it became reviewed it slightly differently. And I think having looking at everything with kind of that, like, uh, gloss half. Full, half empty, um, glass, half full mindset, always looking for the positives and everything. Um, and then always looking to spin everything into a learning experience. What I mean by that is if there is ever, we don't do that well with a client, what can we, what can we learn from it? We, I had a rugby coach called Mr. Lowells who did play professional rugby at one point. He never said he, when we first started getting coached by him, he said that you don't win and you lose, you win and you learn, which I've always. I don't know why it's stuck with me. It's always stuck with me just because I think that it's really important for every single thing that happens wrong is always to learn from it and make sure it doesn't happen again, which is obviously something I do every single day. Yeah. I love that. And I think there's a lot to be gained from, you mentioned earlier about being a reflector as well. And there's a lot to be gained from looking at, not mistakes or lessons, but looking at. Decisions that you've made and reflecting on those and seeing what you might want to do differently next time, for sure. So what does success look like for you in the future within the business? This is the question that I actually don't quite know the answer to yet, because I'm still, we talked about success earlier. I'm still trying to define what success looks like for me. And I, again, I was speaking to a couple of friends about this. I'm happy to share their stories. When I was at secondary school, before I moved into the school that I graduated at. Or finished sixth format. I went to a different school where I was bullied quite a lot. And actually, the six, I've... The reason why one, a big part of my drive now is actually trying to prove people wrong, who bullied me in the, in the first place. And that's like a massive driver. I know, I know it's unhealthy because they shouldn't be the reason for me to want to be successful. I should be the reason to want to be successful. So. It's about changing that and understanding what does success look like for me, I think in the next few years, personal success looks like being able to take, take my foot off the slightly business, be able to run a bit more organically than it does do. And then in terms of business success, I've got my eyes set on Asia and the Middle East. In terms of branching out, Dubai is somewhere I'd love to. Operate and it's more than I do currently. So yeah, in terms of business success in the next kind of two to three years, that's where I'd like to be. I'd also like to expand the team because we've got such a great wealth talent at the moment within the team. I'd love to grow it out because I know there's so much more that we can do with the business than we currently are. Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And I'm sorry to hear about the bullying. It must've been really horrific for you at the time. It's one of those things that actually you look back and I was in Tesco's buying some shopping the other day. And one of the guys who bullied me was at the check out and I hadn't seen him since I'd left that school because I had to move school because of it and seen it since I left that school and it was quite a strange experience and we had a conversation about what we're getting up to now and I spoke about what I'm getting up to and there was almost that element of respect between us, which I thought was interesting, but it is formative and it does change your perspective on things. And obviously I wouldn't wish on anyone. But it does make you a stronger person. I do feel stronger because of that, because now I do actually understand that words don't actually hurt. And also I'm a bit bigger than I was back then. So the physical stuff wouldn't affect me as much anymore. I can probably defend myself a bit better, but I think it's, I think it's one of those, it's one of those things that I probably wouldn't change. If I could, I would probably, I would say to my younger self, I would still want to go through that because I think it's made me better in the long run. That's an incredibly inspiring way of looking at something so sad and tragic that happened to you to turn that around. I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it. What would you say, final remarks for anybody who is feeling a bit stuck at the moment, who maybe is in a negative situation and they want to get out of it. What would you say to them? What would be your words of wisdom, Sam, right now for them? When I ever feel stuck or I just feel like in my life I'm a bit stagnant, I just try something new. And I do something I've never done before. So that goes back to being a lifelong learner. I'm constantly working on a new project. I recently set myself a target of running a marathon next year. That's my goal. That's my aim. That's what I'm working on. And it's even like with the business, we felt like we were a bit stuck and we'd had a bit of a dry period where we hadn't got any new clients. So we did, we had a, we did a website. We redid our branding recently, came up with new products, new service offerings, and looking at developing some tech in the next couple of years too. I'm just changing things up. Just, it can be a tiny life change. So like I recently got a dog and that in terms of the way I live my life now, it's totally different. It's been such a positive life change. Just making these small little changes really makes you feel like you can change things around. I think there was a period a few months ago where it felt like every single morning I was almost having to pick myself back up again and just like to get ready for the day. It was a really tough time for me, but. Just making really small incremental changes in the way I live my life, set myself new targets, give myself new projects to work and really help me to get myself out of that hole in that rock. Yeah. Fantastic, Sam. Thank you so much for sharing some insights into your work and life, and I wish you all the success for the future. If listeners are listening in right now and they want to get in touch with you, where can they reach you? So either on my LinkedIn, you just look up Sam Watson, I'll be on there, or my website, which should be launching as of recording, should be launching tomorrow, the new website, but it'll be out, I'm sure, by the time this gets released, will be the agency spelled A G E N Z Y. co. uk. Brilliant. Thank you, Sam. I wish you all the best for the future. Take care. Thank you. Amazing. Thanks so much.