The Truth of Running an Agency & Why Community is so Damn Important

Join us as we dive deep into the agency world with Ian Harris, founder of Agency Hackers. Discover how community and relationships play a crucial role in navigating challenging periods and why fostering healthy mental habits is essential in a high-pressure environment. Ian shares the significance of their events, and how they help agency leaders balance stress and burnout with laughter and connection. This episode is packed with insights on growing an agency, maintaining mental health, and the power of finding your tribe.

Social Media Links:

Kathryn Strachan - linkedin.com/in/kathryn-strachan

Ian Harris - linkedin.com/in/ianharrisuk

Website: agencyhackers.com 

Transcript

Kathryn: 0:01

Welcome to Marketers Unleashed, the podcast where marketers break free from the noise and dive deep into the raw truths of the marketing world. We're here to go beyond best practices and uncover the bold ideas, untold stories, and hard lessons that shape real marketing success. From dissecting daring campaigns to confronting the challenges keeping us awake at night. We're unleashing honest, unfiltered conversations to inspire, educate, and challenge you to think differently. Get ready to conquer the untamed side of marketing. I'm your host, Kathryn Strachan, and this is Marketers Unleashed, where we're not just talking marketing, we're redefining it for anyone who doesn't know me yet. I'm Kathryn Strachan, author of Scaling Success, Building Brands That Break Barriers, international keynote speaker, and fractional CMO for cutting edge brands. I've spent years navigating the ever changing world of marketing, and I've seen it all. As your podcast host, I bring my expertise and curiosity to the table, diving deep into honest conversations with industry leaders to uncover the insights, challenges, and bold ideas shaping our industry. Let's get started. Hello, welcome to marketers unleashed. Today, I'm joined by Ian Harris, who's here to talk to me about something that I am super interested and super curious in. So we're going to be talking about community and relationships and how you navigate difficult periods and, doing something challenging and who you need around you to support you on that journey. So, Ian, thank you so much for joining me today.

Ian: 1:44

Yeah. Thanks for inviting me on. That's really nice be talking to you.

Kathryn: 1:47

Yeah, absolutely. I think probably we need to set the groundwork a little bit for everybody who's listening, who doesn't know you as well as I do. Can you tell everybody a little bit about yourself and, the community that you run?

Ian: 1:59

Yeah. So I run something called agency hackers. It's a community and events business for people who run independent agencies, we've been going since 2017. We do do monthly events like at the British library. The comedy store. Probably the biggest event we do now is a is in a Ibiza.

Kathryn: 2:17

everybody to party on a beach. That sounds great. Can I have your job?

Ian: 2:21

Well I'm trying to design my life to be the, the one I I want through the business. So I was just having a glass of wine and I thought, I really wanna go to a Ibiza, but I'm 42 and I have lots of children and I, I don't really have any excuse to, and I thought well, I bet loads of other people who are in agencies have the same problem. So I just put it on LinkedIn. If we did a conference in Ibiza, would you guys come? And then people started saying, yes, when is it? So then we had to do it. And that's now our biggest event. And weirdly, it's everyone knows us as the, people who do the agency event in Ibiza so we've been going for like eight years, but it's just that one event that's put us on the map.

Kathryn: 2:55

Become the thing that you're known for. Yeah, that's what I really love about communities because it doesn't really matter if it's agencies or I mean I see it when I do my fractional CMO roundtable dinners But it's that of coming together to solve a similar challenge or because you're all Interested in doing a similar thing

Ian: 3:16

I mean for our audience are all they run agencies and they tend to be like revenue wise or like headcount wise they tend to be maybe like or eight people up to, let's say 40 or 50 people somewhere in between that. And at that level, you've got a successful business and you know where the the next meal is coming from, but you don't have everything figured out like, you're still in the day to day quite a lot. And there's not really anyone you can turn to often to moan about things. You can't really moan to your staff because they work for you. You can't really complain to your husband or your wife you definitely can't complain to your clients. So it's really only other agency leaders that know what, the trials and tribulations are like, clients who think you're the only client you have. They don't realize you have other clients. You've got the team who a different generation to you, different expectations. When people work for you, they think sometimes they want complete independence and freedom to do the job however they want, but they also want you to be their parent and most of our agency community that fallen into running an agency. They never intended to do it and, managing people, they don't really know how to do that. there's a big need for kind of group therapy in a way. That's sort of what we offer.

Kathryn: 4:27

I mean, It's really difficult. I used to run an agency and I had a head of ops who was was there from like the very beginning and he really took a lot of responsibility for the agency. And even though like he felt very passionate about it and felt that he owned it in a way. it was impossible for him to fully feel everything that I felt and the way that I felt it because, I was the one where the buck really stopped at the end of the day. It's definitely Really like awful to not have anybody you can really turn to you know, your partner never really understands it. And yeah, Those other agency owners are in a similar boat, similar size, similar challenges, why do you think that those relationships are so important and, what would happen without them?

Ian: 5:09

A lot of audience, like agency leaders they kind of know what they need to do in theory, but they Need someone to kick them up the ass and do it. And without meeting other people they wouldn't be inspired to do the things they do. Like an example is we run our Ibiza super summit every September. And one of our delegates, she was lying on a sun lounger at our, one of the pool parties we run, and she was talking to another founder he made her promise that when she gets back she's gonna call this lapsed client. arrange a call with them and she's gonna chase them. Two weeks after she had done that, she'd got a meeting with them in New York, this client, and they'd paid her a million dollars up front for a 12 month activity. And it was all because of this one conversation on the sun lounger, and he just said pull your finger out and do this, and she did it. sometimes you, need that catalyst and someone else, can't read the label from inside the bottle, you know, and I think that's true when you run an agency. like there's a theory about turtles, right? If you put a turtle in a tank, it will grow to the size of the tank. So if you want a bigger turtle, you've got to have a bigger tank. Same's kind of true with agencies. If you hang around agencies that are slightly bigger than you, you feel like it's normal to be bigger, but a lot of agencies, they hang around with them, just the people you meet in the, we work or whatever. And like a lot of micro businesses, maybe doing 200K or 300K. Those are fine businesses, but if you're trying to build something that's bigger than you and you can sell one day, you need to be somewhere it's normal to have a sizable business. So that's kind of one thing I think is important to hang out with other people because it, it sets your expectations in a healthy way.

Kathryn: 6:52

Yeah, and talking about healthy habits, how do you think that running an agency impacts your mental health?

Ian: 7:00

Yeah, the number of people who are depressed, the number of people who anecdotally, like everyone's getting divorced at the moment. I don't know if um,

Kathryn: 7:08

You mentioned that.

Ian: 7:09

Yeah, I put it, I just put it on LinkedIn. I was like, I've noticed everyone getting divorced. and some people said it's just because of my age, like you get to a certain point and everyone is getting divorced and then you get a bit older and everyone's going to funerals. So maybe it's that, but I've just noticed a lot of people, they're splitting up and I'm sure it's got something to do with just the tough. agency market because, lot of founders are really struggling. And the mental health thing is a bit sometimes you roll your eyes at it a little bit. It's a bit kind of overdone, but I do think genuinely like we've lived through like rising interest rates unheard of economic uncertainty a complete reinvention of like work culture, work from home and really wobbly to client demand and clients not knowing what they're doing. Just unprecedented uncertainty. Throughout all that, like we're trying to run a business and be profitable and it's just a really hard thing to do So it's no wonder people are burning out and Finding it really tough because you can't really admit that You've got it's this conjuring trick and you can't really ever admit that you don't know what You're doing unless you're in somewhere where it's okay to , take your armor off.

Kathryn: 8:13

Yeah, I think it's really difficult as well. In any situation, that's really highly pressurized because you've got big expectations on yourself, but then, you're also supporting a team, got client expectations and you're trying to navigate all of this while also navigating all the external stuff that you have no control over. And I don't even think it's just, agency owners that face that, I think it's, any role where you have really high expectations and you don't have, perhaps, the support internally or, you don't have the resources you need to be able to do the stuff that you need to do, or, you're trying to navigate really challenging and difficult situations. Looking after your mental health in the middle of that is probably, even more essential than looking after your mental health in other times.

Ian: 9:00

I just think a lot of people who run agency businesses, they see their business as this jigsaw that they will one day complete. so it's fine if you're pushing through because you'll get to the end and it'll be done, the problems never stop coming. There's always new things and there's always new challenges. And If you don't have a senior leadership team to be doing the puzzle for you it's a kind of one way, ticket to burn out because one teaches you to build a leadership team and to find people who can run a business. though it's theirs. I don't really know how people do it. Like it is very difficult especially if you start small.'cause you start small and you get people to do tasks, right? Very discreet tasks. You do this, you do that, but then you grow and then you need people to stop being, order takers and be decision consultants and make decisions and think outside the box. And sometimes those are different people. And just the whole growth of an agency is just full of. Pain.

Kathryn: 9:54

And not everybody that you hire at that beginning is, fit for a senior leadership role towards the end. And it's really difficult to hire senior leaders because you Often don't know as much about that role. So say a CFO, and if you're a creative, which most agency owners are, and you're trying to hire, CFO or head of finance, you're never going to know as much about finance as they, they do. And at senior level, you're really looking for like strategists. And it's really difficult to, in an interview process to know who's going to be a good strategist, whether it's for client services or new business or whatever role it is that they're going to take. It's really difficult to see. and identify good strategists in the interview because they might know how to say all the right things, but then can they really read between the lines and find those like golden nuggets and like really do that in the day to day? It's much easier to evaluate a creative who, they hand you a sample of your work. Okay, that work looks good. Let's try you on a trial project. Okay, great. Let's hire you. Great. That's a lot easier than, can you solve this really complex problem and give me an answer that is going to, actually help the agency rather than hinder it. It's much harder to like hire and onboard good senior leaders. Yeah, I've been through my fair few of bad ones and some good ones, but yeah, we definitely seen some bad ones.

Ian: 11:35

Yeah. And anytime you see like an agency owner, who's frazzled or stressed, it's always because of people problems. Like generally they love the work They quite like the clients. They like the craft of running a business, but it's just the people who do you in because

Kathryn: 11:50

Agencies are built entirely on people. You don't actually have any most agencies don't have any IP or actual value within the agency. The value of an agency comes through the contracts. So you have contracts with the clients, and you have contracts with the employees. So you've got people on both sides. And people can be batshit crazy.

Ian: 12:07

Yeah, totally.

Kathryn: 12:09

Yeah, so it's not surprising, but understanding people and being able to like work and navigate with people is like the only way to really do it, which is, where relationships come into it. It's building relationships with the team, but, also having a community that you can draw on. It's a little concerning. And I completely believe you, and I can see it because I almost ended up divorced, and thankfully did not. But it took a year of marriage counseling to get us back into a good place. And, thankfully my husband is the most patient, loyal man you will ever find. But it took hard work, so I definitely see it, but it's concerning that running an agency comes with such a high cost, cause losing your life partner is probably one of the highest costs you can pay. Why do you think that happens?

Ian: 12:53

It's not all agencies, but it's definitely the ones that we serve like what I've observed is like if you were in a very small agency, small is relative right? But let's say under 400k in revenue, you can have quite a nice life and you've got one or two team members you're making good money. But then you grow it and there's this gulf. between up to one or 2 million in revenue, it's just, it's very difficult. It's stressful. You want a growth path. You're going through a lot of constant change because you're always trying to replace people because you're growing and you don't have the right people. So that, period is very stressful, but once you get above. three or four million in revenue. you tend to be able to afford consultants and management and those people tend to be much more calmer. there's this whole category of agency that's a bit bigger than agency hackers serve. So you don't really have much pain and they have nice lives and they go on holiday a lot. but in our the audience we've chosen to serve because we're like a specialist media business So we need people with problems because if everything's fine in a business they don't want a community or they don't come to events because they don't have any problems that can be solved So the audience we've chosen to serve does have a lot of those problems. But I think it's just ones that are on A growth path, the metaphor I always use is like when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it goes through this. Metamorphosis in the cocoon when it's doing that. there's a phase where it's not a caterpillar and it's not a butterfly. It's just this sticky, gooey alien not one or the other. And a lot of the agencies and agency hackers that kind of sticky, gooey mess phase where they're just this blob of stuff. And can be quite a traumatic phase.

Kathryn: 14:27

wonder if that hurts butterflies. It sounds really painful.

Ian: 14:31

Yeah. It's weird. It's like, it's literally not one or the other. It's just this blob. It's crazy.

Kathryn: 14:37

I was talking to one of my agency friends last week, and we were talking about like false dons, because there's a lot of false dons in agency world where, you feel like you've got a deal on the line, like it's going to come through, you're so excited, it's going to change everything, and then it doesn't. What do you think about false dons and how much optimism is good to have? How do you not always fall for the false dons, but also keep a sensible head and not be totally depressed?

Ian: 15:09

The way I try and look at it is how can we make our business so that I would have to be really stupid and really rubbish to not succeed? So What do people just want, fundamentally, universe that we can give them? I've spent so long building businesses where they're all dependent on me persuading people about stuff. if you look at the domain names I've registered over the years and the little companies and logos and projects it's probably about 20. Agency Hackers is just, it's just the first one that, that works. But the way I try and see it is like what's true and what will always be true. So people like laughing, right? So like a baby can laugh probably about six months before it can talk. people are always going to want comedy. So that's why we do an agency comedy night, because fundamentally people, all things being equal, people will want to come to that. Like the Ibiza super summit, our audience are in their forties and fifties. Many of them. We used to go to Ibiza when they were 20, a lot of them have not had a holiday in four years, so all things being equal, a lot of them would probably want to come to an event held in Ibiza and and we've got a big agency growth summit in January and we know there's a certain number of agencies, they're all trying to grow, I just always try and look at the fundamentals and think well, are we trying to, are we trying to push water uphill here? Yeah. Are we trying to convince people of stuff or are we going around and scooping up the opportunity that's already there? Sort of. A bit of a shift I had in the past couple of years. I was like, let's try to stop selling people stuff because they don't want, and let's just try and figure out what they want and give them that.

Kathryn: 16:40

But that's harder in marketing, when you're trying to convince the board to invest in content or social or events when sales aren't good and all they're looking at is the numbers. Where like they're literally trying to cut like everything. So the marketing budget's gone from being quite like good and generous and healthy to like. absolute pennies pretty much overnight because they are in like total panic mode and it's really difficult when boards or when The budget holders are in panic mode to, identify what those like super urgent things would be because they quite wrongly often think that it's sales. How do you justify yourself as something that people fundamentally need in a market where people are panicking and are stressed and think that their businesses might not even survive?

Ian: 17:32

Honestly, I don't know. And that's the short answer. The slightly longer answer is like the reason I chose, agency leaders as the audience for our business is because they don't have any decision makers. They can just do what they want so we don't have Convince people to do stuff. i've noticed is that you can't fade like trends so if certain industries are declining or they're not growing. Like You can't beat that, because in marketing we always think that we can out market the economy or we can just do great copy write a great headline we can convince people of stuff, but it's ultimately You want to be in a market that's growing because even really stupid people can make money if everything's going up. For example, we had an event called the good agency summit, and we did it for three years. And it was about B Corp and sustainability and stuff like that. And this year there was zero interest in it. No one's talking about wanting to become a B Corp. No one's talking about sustainability being like the top priority in the agency. So we, canceled it We could have like probably convinced everyone to come to it but we'd have lost money on it and You just can't Beat what the market wants. So I think the agencies that are doing really well That i've seen are the ones that are in b2b the ones that are in like live events Experiential because that's really taking off at the moment. The ones that are doing ppc paid media for B2B and the ones that do really poorly, the ones that some cases doing like purpose driven stuff, like chasing brands like Ecover, where there's just too many people chasing the same clients. So it's crazy how much of it is down to the market and not the actual agency.

Kathryn: 19:03

Yeah, I guess to like when there's so much pressure, when the, things are in such a bad place, people stop caring about some of these things that they should care about or, that they would want to care about, like sustainability and ethics and values. this happens across agencies as well as brands. It's not, just agencies or even markets that are like subject to it, but values and ethics and morals go right out the window sometimes when brands and agencies are stressed out. The lack of Interest around like B Corp, there was big interest in B Corp when the market was having that boom after COVID. There was lots of kind of money out there and everybody was doing pretty well and so they could then also think about these additional and not that it should be that way, but I think it's maybe difficult in business to maintain ethics and morals and values when you're scared.

Ian: 19:58

Our job is to pay attention to what people want and give that to them because. We could be really arrogant and say we're leading the industry or we're doing this, but really, we're just holding a mirror up to what people already want and we can't really affect which direction the herd runs in.

Kathryn: 20:12

And going back to some of this fundamental need, I wanna talk about like, your comedy event for a minute, I love that. But I mean, why do you think that comedy and humor is so important both in like community, but also as part of the agency journey?

Ian: 20:30

Because it's just so ridiculous, like a lot of the situations we get ourselves into as agency leaders you pick up the phone and you're having a conversation with the client about industrial gas turbines or something. And the next minute you're on a call and you're just in the margarine world. We're completely expected to be expert in everything and it's just so silly and we're selling our time as experts, but we're really, we're always making it up as we go along and some of the people you meet in the media are just bonkers and you'll go to a meeting with a client and you might see someone in Soho and that you go in and they give you a coffee and it's a flat white and it's the beautifully barista made. The next day you'll go to see a client and they'll be like in Bracknell and on Office Park and they'll give you Nescafe and a Sports Direct mug, and, the journeys we go on um, so it's just a ridiculous industry and we thought it'd be fun to poke fun at it. We actually didn't come up with the idea of Agency Comedy Night. Simon Bolin, who runs We Are Boutique up in Leeds. They did Agency Comedy Night. It was in February 2023. And I thought it was so cool. And I said, look, do you mind if we do one of these? And he said, yeah, it's fine, as long as you don't come to Leeds. Yeah, we do one in London, they do theirs in Leeds, but, yeah, we do it at the Comedy Store, we get 400 people there, and not all the jokes are about um, timesheets, but, some of them are, like, we have agency comedians, and they just joke about their clients, and, yesterday actually I was on a course learning how to emcee a comedy event because it's quite like interacting with the crowd and setting that setting the tone, that's something I want to try and do but it's really hard to do comedy because you've got to have the right venue. It's got to be underground and it's got to be in a dark room because people don't laugh if they can be seen laughing New York, like the Gotham Comedy Club, the Comedy Cellar, these are all underground places and there's something about people laugh more if they feel safe to laugh. But yeah, I'm just learning a lot about comedy but we have quite Playful tone to like Agency Hackers and I think having comedy is part of that.

Kathryn: 22:25

I mean, I think laughing is such an important part to community because we were talking about all these difficult things that agency owners have to go through and like, all the shit that you have to navigate as an agency owner and leader and to have friends that you can lean on for that bad stuff, but you don't just want friends who you can just complain to and who like, have a glass of wine and a cry with. You also want friends that you have like positive memories with, that you can laugh with and have these memorable experiences. So I think that's like what makes Agency Hackers so special is like you found a really nice way to like create fun and positivity in a world that is full of stress and burnout and divorce And you've helped like agency owners to balance that. I think it's something that like all communities really need to think about because it can't just be a community that you go to find work in or a community that you go to have a cry in. I think you need both sides in order to have like the experience.

Ian: 23:29

yeah, I do think it's important because you go to a lot of events and conferences and you walk in and it has this quite serious tone. Like people are there and they've got straight faces and, okay, everybody welcome sit down. Now we'll have some, the chairman's remarks and it sort of puts people in their box a little bit and their guard is up. And one of the things we try and do at our conferences, we try and have like a bit of a playful tone to them. At the start of the day, before the conference gets going, but when everyone's in the room, we'll pick on a few people and we'll set this up in advance.

Kathryn: 23:58

And it's nice to like, make it more personal and to add that personality and that flavor and yeah, be able to connect and bring people together. And I know that you aren't just connecting and bringing people together in the UK, but are now expanding into the U.S., which is really cool. Because a lot of brands, a lot of agencies want to go into the U. S. market and vice versa. So I mean, How have you found taking it into the U. S.?

Ian: 24:24

We're still at a really early stage, and in fact, you, because you told me like agencies over there a little bit more reluctant to meet their competitors, which is going to be really interesting because maybe the fact that not, there's not many bigger agency conferences there is because it's difficult.

Kathryn: 24:45

Americans tend to be very competitive in nature. It's not everybody either, obviously. mean, America's a big place. But there's probably a big need for community in the U.S. as well, obviously. Community is essential when you're trying to do something really hard, and the agencies in the U.S. are facing the same and similar kinds of challenges, and are maybe even more isolated from other agency owners by it being such a big place, and, I could see how it's needed, perhaps even more so.

Ian: 25:15

I have theories of how it will play out, but I, at the same time, I recognize that have no idea. And I'm very mindful that America is a different place with a different culture and we can't just expect to bring what we do over there and have it work our kind of goal is to do like an event for 200 people in Miami in 2026.

Kathryn: 25:35

You know, I want to ask you before we wrap up, if somebody who's listening is either thinking about starting their agency journey or is in the middle of their agency journey, like what advice would you have for them?

Ian: 25:49

It's good to be with people who have done what you're doing it's good to be in an environment where what you're trying to do is normal because when you're starting out you're often around other like micro businesses and a lot of those micro businesses are always going to be micro businesses because they're not on a growth. But if you are trying to grow an agency and a business, then be with people who are slightly ahead of you because then they'll drag you up like with Agency Hackers. The only reason we've grown is because our audience are all bigger than us. So it feels like we're, we feel too small. So we're there's this gravity pulling us up. If I just hung around with other freelancers and whatever, they would just still be tiny. So I think you always have that like gravity of somewhat being around people who are slightly ahead of you, so you can ask them questions and just be influenced by them. That seems to be the thing to do. That, That would be my advice.

Kathryn: 26:40

Yeah, I mean, It makes a lot of sense because the agency journey in and of itself is not unique. Lots of us have done it and are doing it. You don't have to make your own path. You can, follow the path that's been set. Maybe, walk it your own way, but follow the path that's been set. And, you don't have to make things harder than they need to be by not asking for help or by not, being part of a community.

Ian: 27:03

Yeah, and there's different communities, they all have their different flavour, if the one you're in doesn't vibe with you, then there's other ones, and you'll eventually like, find your tribe.

Kathryn: 27:12

That's a really nice final message I think to wrap up on. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a real pleasure to talk with you and remind myself of some of these agency things. And the importance and value of community.

Ian: 27:26

I've enjoyed it, yeah thanks for having me, Kathryn.

Kathryn: 27:30

That's a wrap for this episode of Marketers Unleashed. Thank you for tuning in and diving deep with us into the unleashed world of marketing. We hope you're leaving with fresh insights, new ideas, and maybe even a few ah-ha moments to fuel your next big move. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a new episode. And hey, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a review or connect with us on LinkedIn to share your thoughts. And join in the conversation. Until next time, keep thinking bold, challenging the norms and unleashing your inner marketer after all, what's the worst that'll happen. I'm your host, Kathryn Strachan, over and out!