Welcome to Episode 78. This episode is for you if you’re an agency owner, busy running an agency, but also facing challenges or adversity in your private life.
Rebecca McIntyre-Smith is director of digital agency Primate, and founder of the Lemur Foundation. She has a remarkably touching story of tragedy, adversity and resilience. She also shares her practical tips for other agency owners. If you’d like to be a guest on Rebecca’s own podcast to tell your story, then you can contact her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccamcintyresmith/
And if you’re listening to this at the beginning of 2023, and you want this year to be the year that you not only retain your agency accounts, but you grow your accounts, you can also connect with me on LinkedIn and let’s talk about training for either you in your account management role, or a member of your team. You can also visit my Training page.
Transcript:
Jenny 00:05
Today I’m delighted to have with me Rebecca McIntyre-Smith. Rebecca is the managing partner at Primate, a digital transformation agency based in Edinburgh. She is also the founder of the Lemur Foundation, a foundation that donates top up budget to charity clients investing in digital, and as if that wasn’t enough, and you’ll find out more because she’s going to tell her story. She is also the host of About This Storm, which we will get into a little bit later. Rebecca warm welcome to the show.
Rebecca 00:36
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to chat to you.
Jenny 00:39
It’s a pleasure, and honestly, since we connected a few months ago now we have had several chats and I just love your energy, you exude energy. One of the reasons that I invited you on is because you have such a heart wrenching story, that I think this is going to be a great episode for people listening that may be going through some kind of difficulty in their life. But they are also trying to either work in or actually lead an agency. So I think your story is so pertinent. Would you mind starting off by spending a few minutes just talking about it. First of all, a bit of background as to what led you to be an agency owner? And then maybe we could get into a bit more detail about the last few years?
Rebecca 01:32
Absolutely. And it’s such a terrible starting story, because I fell into it completely by accident. I was doing contract voiceover for another agency who did both video and digital. And one day, they said, Oh, we really like you. Do you think you would be interested in interviewing for the account exec role? And I said, Oh, no, I’m not an accountant. I don’t do math, words, English. that’s my thing. You got the wrong person! And they said, no, no, honestly, that’s not what it’s about come and have a chat and we had a chat and they said, You know, I think you’d be a great fit. And I think you’d really work in the Client Services Department, do you fancy giving it a go? And I got the job on the day. ln the same meeting in the interview room. So we did that. And I joined. And very quickly, I mean, within two days, I had made friends with who is now my co Managing Partner, Gordon and basically, I had to sit down and beg him to give me web one on one, literally, what is a website? What do we do? what is HTML? and the client thing, you know, I’m a naturally very personable, I love people, I love listening to their stories. I love their businesses, I love finding out what their plans are. So that bit came really naturally, understanding the digital bit did not, but that’s where I started. Then when I left that agency, Gordon actually left, and I think, two or three months after I started to set up Primate with two other members of staff and when they started, he said, Oh, keep in touch, and we’ll see what happens. I think it was five years later, we eventually reconnected and got back in touch and had a conversation. and they were doing brilliant things, and I sort of said, I feel like you need someone who can sell it, you are great! but nobody knows who you are. And so I persuaded them to take me on – they agreed! And now we laugh and my joke is, Oh, they needed me – they were doing all the awesome stuff, but somebody had to go and tell them and tell the world how awesome these guys were. And so yes, I’m not a founder. I fully muscled in and now I am owner-director and I share the managing partner role with Gordon.
Jenny 03:50
Wow. So what’s Gordon’s experience? What is his thing? Why is this a good balance with you doing the sales and the client development?
Rebecca 04:01
Gordon was a developer, he moved from development across so the company was started by Bart, developer, Ethan, designer, and Gordon developer. And Gordon, because he had design and dev brilliance, and the other two, Gordon actually stepped into the MD role, and the Client Services and also doing everything else that you do in a startup, when there’s three of you, and you have no clients and you just exist. So when I came on, he was touching everything, but still running an agency. So I came on and it naturally blended into, I’ll take client services, I’ll do the commercial bit and my role changed, client services to commercial director to director to managing partner. So it just it worked really nicely. We blended really well together.
Jenny 04:48
Wow, that’s quite an interesting story, and I think it might have given a little bit of inspiration to someone that perhaps is thinking about setting up on their own but maybe doesn’t feel like they want to go it alone. And actually, there’s been quite a few people that have left agencies to set up. So maybe someone, somewhere, listening to this might think, well, actually, maybe I should approach this person, because we loved working together. You never know.
Rebecca 05:12
Yes, absolutely. I have a huge number of friends across agencies, and those who run it completely alone, who are sole directors. You know, I always joke with them, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t be you. I couldn’t do your job. I could not, and you know, there’s so many challenges and agencies, so many ups and downs and whilst I think it’s great that you can bring in all your mentors, for me, having the stability of my co-director is where you can just jump into a conversation, where somebody else is sharing the decision making, or the stress or the load. It is not equal all the time. You know, there’s still Gordon and I still have to take quite large decisions, aside from the rest of the team. But I just couldn’t imagine doing this on my own. So yes, I think kudos to everybody who does it on their own. I would recommend doing it with somebody else.
Jenny 06:02
Right. So how long were you in that role? So you started off and you were managing the client relationship development? And you did a commercial director role? And then how far into that? How many years have you worked at Primate?
Rebecca 06:18
I have worked at Primate now for I think eight years? Yes eight! Oh, God, I didn’t know I would have to tell you off the top of my head!. And so the first four were spent every year they moved me from business development, client services, commercial director, right the way up until I joined the board, and then I said, look, I think, you know, let me buy in. I promise I’ll put skin in the game. I’m committed. I’m here and yes, so that process took a little while. But we got there in the end. So here we are now.
Jenny 06:52
Great. So from that moment, up until 2019, tell us about the evolution of the business.
Rebecca 06:59
It was really organic, we started as an agile agency and, you know, we went out as tiny, tiny agency with insanely creative leadership and ideas. You know, Bart, of Ted Of Dev is a philosophy grad. That’s his background and he comes at us in a completely different way. And he challenges us. He’s been challenging people in digital ethics and on the way we should be treating projects and on best practice for years and years before it was, Oh everybody wants to know about core web vitals, he was always pushing it. And likewise, at the time, our creative director had this incredible vision, and it was really kind of specific on the sites we wanted to do, the challenge with it is that pitching agile, you might get a website where we are not entirely sure how many pages you will have. This is sort of what it might cost, but really, this type of materials was just not conducive to actually growing the agency. And when we started, we also wanted it to be very, very relaxed. So we had no account managers, no project managers, everybody worked, we would work directly with the senior team and after a couple of years, you realise you can’t actually run a business that way! But we had to try it. And so yes, realising that it didn’t work, we started working on the Primate process. So that has evolved through the years, and now for want of a better term, we call it “Wagile”, which basically is a waterfall model, but with the agile benefits in each section, so that you still have that budget and time for iteration and thinking and testing each stage, but we still have a very fixed sign off point. So the client still understands that when they move from planning, discovery, into design,that they have signed that off. If we are going back, we need to then start re-scoping re-casting. It is much clearer, and it works really well for the projects, we deliver both from our side and for the client side.
Jenny 08:53
And by that stage, as you were developing and growing the business, you started putting account managers and project managers in place.
Rebecca 08:59
Yes and actually we split it out straightaway, we realised that somebody who had taken that account management background and kind of run with it. I knew that I was not a project manager. I was an account manager but I was not a project manager, they are very different roles and we needed a different type of person. We needed that very fastidious, time orientated, detail orientated person who could really run something through the studio, whereas the account managers were all about relationships and about building that going forward. They were going to be key to the longevity and the success of our client base. Whereas a project manager was going to be key to actually getting a project out the door on time and on budget. So for us, as soon as we realised we wanted the roles, that they always had to be separate we never blended them together.
Jenny 09:47
I’m glad you said that actually, because it’s funny, I think, having had this discussion with numerous people who have the hybrid role of an account manager but they’re actually project managing things. There is a lot of frustration for someone who is a pure account manager, you know what you excel at, you know that you love developing relationships. So it can be frustrating. So by that stage, you’re on the board, you are a board director, the agency is going well, presumably, and you change the model of the agency, the way of working processes. So talk to me about the run up to October 2019.
Rebecca 10:27
We had some challenging years, around about 2017. Just that natural flow of growth, as you grow slightly, and then you have to push more sales, and then there’s a bit of a lull, and you have to push again, and just that natural slightly tumultuous, I guess, growth period. But by and large, it was fun, we had a really, really close knit team. And you know, we were still very hands on in the agency at that point, because we were still only 12 people. We weren’t large, we weren’t tiny. But we were, at that point, squished into this tiny office. So in June 2019, we finally moved into our big studio, where we are now, which is actually just around the corner. And suddenly it felt like we had come of age, you know, we had done all the interior design, and we knew exactly how we wanted it to look, we had built an auditorium with this cool tiered seating so that we could host interesting events and it was just a step change and we were ready for proper growth. We had brought on mentors, we had brought on strategists we had brought on coaches. And that was it, we were going to do proper growth, you know, strategic growth, and everything was in place for it.
Jenny 11:36
So carry on the story.
Rebecca 11:38
So everything ready, for our strategy, our strategized growth. And then unfortunately for the guys I work with, God bless them, I put a fairly major cat among the pigeons. In the very late December 2019, or 2018, actually just pushing it into January 2019 my husband was diagnosed with stage three head and neck cancer. He was 36 at the time, and it’s a very, very rare, really unusual cancer, and I remember, he had been really unwell, he had pain, he had this lump in his neck that wouldn’t go away. We were sent to the clinic and his doctor, who we love now, look, we walked in and he said, Keith, you know, you are well, you are healthy, you are fit. I don’t know what cancer you have, but I’m telling you, you have cancer without any touching or examining him. And so instantly, it was like, okay, surely he’s wrong. Of course, we know now, you know, he’s incredibly intelligent and knows exactly what he is doing and he wasn’t wrong. So from January, Keith started very, very intensive treatment, because it had spread from his throat down into his lymph nodes. So induction chemo combined chemo, radiotherapy, surgery, all of it right the way through. And he finally was given the all clear on the 13th of August 2019. So it was, it was bonkers. We went from vigorous strategy, and all these plans and continuing to follow the plan. To me, sort of, I look back and it’s hard to decide, was I just clinging on to some normality, refusing to acknowledge the situation. Did I have guilt because we couldn’t do the kind of full thing – but we didn’t pull me out of sales or client services until way too late. So I was still – actually I was laughing with someone who has been through a similar experience recently-
I would get up in the morning, I would go to the office, I would leave the office, I would go to the hospital, which is 10 minutes away from the office, I would then sit there all evening, I would go home and go to sleep, I go to the office, and then on days he was really unwell, I would just go to the ward and I would just sit and do emails like that on the ward. And you look back and think you would never have let a member of staff do that!
But you kind of can’t see the wood from the trees when you’re right in the middle of it. But we look back and you can see in our figures. You can see when the cancer hit and then just the slow, steady decline as the sales slowed down as we didn’t move the roles around fast enough. You can see the cost of cancer in our agency that year.
Jenny 14:18
Wow. I mean, first of all, absolutely devastating and I can see with the emotion in your eyes, that it brings back painful memories. And clearly by the sounds of things you were on autopilot, weren’t you during that time?
Rebecca 14:34
For sure.
Jenny 14:36
Looking back on that, on how you were operating on autopilot? If so, because I know a lot of people turn to you for advice and reassurance and guidance. If someone’s listening to this that has had something equally as huge happen to them, looking back on that, are there any other pieces of advice you would have given to someone that was right there? Experiencing what you have experienced?
Rebecca 15:03
The benefit of hindsight, and I think it’s a two-edged sword when you’re a business owner. So the benefit of hindsight is I look back and think I should have pulled myself out of the business immediately. We should have instigated business continuity in the emergency plan straightaway, we should have switched out the rules, we should have pulled out the key man, insurance, all of that. But at the same time, you know, when you’re only a team of 12, there’s only so much you can give away without the impact on the business being really significant. It can be really severe. When, as a team of 12, we only had one key commercial director, and Gordon had to step in and pick all that up and, this is where I say, I’m really lucky, I know, actually, that Primate would not exist if I had been a sole director because of what continued to happen. But one of the most poignant and a story actually, I forgot, and Gordon told in a talk months later, was we were up against it for this huge pitch, I mean, agency changing pitch, it was incredible. The chemistry was brilliant and we had somebody in there who was our champion, it was just spectacular. And so, you know, as per with an agency, the deck wasn’t completely perfect. It wasn’t quite right, and it was the morning of the day before the pitch and the night before Keith had been admitted to hospital. I had taken a phone call that morning from his consultant around about half past seven telling me that he had sepsis, and he was gravely unwell. I remember sitting at our dining table, just crying and going, I genuinely don’t know what to do. I know I have to go and see him, he’s so unwell. But at the same time, I’m going to have to leave the entire team with the pitch I’ve been running with, the proposal, everything. It has taken weeks and weeks and weeks of relationship building. I had to call Gordon just in floods of tears and say I can’t do this. I can’t, I have to go. He was amazing and just said, just leave it, just close your laptop, look we’ve got it, just close your laptop. And so he did that and we lost the pitch. But I still look back and think, you know what, I don’t know how he delivered it anyway, because the team were amazing. They were so chill about it all and they just continued, they picked up where they had to, if they could see any gaps, they would just fill them back in. So I think it’s completely , you know if I met the client again today, I would say I am so pleased you didn’t pick us. I was gutted at the time, but now, I think some things are meant for you, and some things are meant to shift you in a different direction.
Jenny 17:42
And you know what, I think this is a really honest account, Rebecca, of what you were actually going through at the time, because I’m sure a lot of people listening, particularly agency owners who have got small teams that everyone carries the weight, that there are those really tricky dilemmas and everyone says family first, but when push comes to shove – could I work? I feel okay and you must have been going through a million and one different emotions. But it sounded like you made the right call. And amazing that Gordon said close your laptop that actually made me tear up when he said that because that’s just huge. So carry on telling me the story. So you said that Keith, thankfully, on the 13th of October, that very same year had been given the all clear.
Rebecca 18:30
So 13th of August, and it’s embedded in my mind, because it’s also my birthday and I remember saying to the doctor do we have to do it on the 13th because it’s my birthday, so you’re going to make or break my birthday for the rest of time. And he again, very dark humour and he laughed and he said, Well look, just pick McDonald’s if it’s bad and book Guarnaschelli if it’s great. Guarnaschelli is an incredible restaurant and, McDonald’s is McDonald’s, and he insisted on doing it and we walked in and he just smiled and said, Oh, you’re completely cured! isn’t that good news. But yes, that was not good birthday Russian Roulette.
Jenny 19:13
We haven’t talked a lot about Keith and how he fared during that time, how was it behind the scenes?
Rebecca 19:21
His consultant, not that one, his oncologist describes him as the most Zen patient he’s ever had. And that is not the person that I married, it’s not, because I used to laugh and say he’s not the most Zen person! He’s stubborn and he can be a bit antagonistic and all that normal husband and wife tussle but he just took it in his stride and just somehow he put it in his mind that he just had to keep going and it would eventually end and I mean, he had dreadful complications – too many to go into now, but, if you name it, if it could go wrong with his treatment, it went wrong. You know, they even know and they joke about it. If you go in for an appointment his folder is this big and everyone else is this size. Yes, so he was very stoic about it and very calm and quite introverted about it. He didn’t really want to share much and talk about it, just wanted to get through it and get done. So we gave everybody a lot of updates when the treatment was happening, but nobody really saw him. He lost 25 kilos in the process, because he lost the ability to swallow temporarily and I remember the first time a couple of people saw him and it was just the shock because you know somebody’s going through something, but it’s not until you see somebody who has been through that much treatment that you realise they were unwell.
Jenny 20:43
Incredible. So the 13th of October 2019, you had a huge celebration. Keith has got the all clear. Talk to us about what happened then.
Rebecca 20:51
So yes 49 days after his all clear, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, completely unconnected, just pure bad luck. We went through all the possible reasons and while stress could have been one, it wasn’t one that was strong enough to have been the definitive. It could have been a contributing factor. But yes, I was diagnosed on the 1st October. It is very on brand, though, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
Jenny 21:20
Oh, my goodness. And, okay, so at what stage with you there, because you have this period of jubilation that Keith was okay, then you get the devastating news that this is going to affect you. Talk us through what was happening in the business at that point. How the news landed with you, what was the reality of that, getting that diagnosis?
Rebecca 21:40
I remember being diagnosed by this lovely doctor, who initially had said, Oh, I’m sure it will be fine, I’ll be fine, and at the end of the five hours I have been in hospital, he said, Okay, it’s not fine. And I just swore, and said, right, fine, let’s get on with it and walked outside. But as soon as I stepped outside his room, I completely fell apart.
Keith even said to me at the time, because he was obviously quite upset at the time and said, I would honestly rather do it again, then have you doing it, no, this is awful. And so we just went okay and, again, I phoned Gordon and said, Gordon, I wasn’t expecting to do this, but could you jump into the meeting I have scheduled at two o’clock because I’m not going to be back in the office. Poor Gordon, the stress levels, I throw at him!
Jenny 22:30
He sounds like an absolute rock.
Rebecca 22:32
Completely, yes, completely. And, I think we have done both for each other. So that started my journey straightaway. So I was lucky in that it was caught earlier than Keith’s. So whilst I did need all of the usual chemo, radio, surgery, et cetera, et cetera, it was not quite as brutal as Keith’s, however, obviously, being diagnosed late 2019. My treatment then ran all the way through COVID. So it went from going in quite easily and quite naturally, to actually being quite a challenge. But again, and this sounds really morbid, It gave us an excuse to leave the house. We were alone, we were allowed to drive somewhere. And we were allowed to drive because it was one on one care, instead of being on a ward of 12. It was you and a nurse just sitting for two hours at a time getting chemo or Herceptin or anything else and just chatting. They would bring sandwiches and we had to sit apart. But yes, it was this weird freedom, we would drive back through the city and it was completely dead. But we were completely legitimately allowed to be out.
Jenny 23:40
That is hilarious, but really just poignant as well. So do you think COVID got in the way of anything? Or do you actually think that everything progressed as it should have progressed, because I know, there’s quite a lot of controversy around that.
Rebecca 23:57
So COVID, for me was lucky. Because I was diagnosed early COVID didn’t get in the way of my treatment at all. I was taken on time for everything, surgery, et cetera, was still going on they literally ran the Cancer Centre as if there was nothing happening, except they had to spread us around the entire hospital and that was the only difference, you would disappear into different parts of the hospital with every appointment, any spare room, there would be a cancer patient in it. But aside from that, there was no impact whatsoever. The one thing COVID did do, however. having obviously had the experience with Keith, again, I was a bit stubborn and insisted on staying in role, but actually by my third chemo, it really wasn’t working. so I agreed with the guys to step out of the business completely. However, I was only off for I think 11 weeks when COVID hit and instantly we had no idea what was happening with the business. So I came off sick leave and jumped right back into the business again. Because, again, it felt like we had no idea and you look back now and go oh why?, but at the time we had no idea what was happening, and like everybody else, clients were calling and pausing their projects, pausing their retainers, pausing invoices. It was like there was just this stasis temporarily, nobody knew what was happening, we were all frozen in time. So I jumped back in and we tried to do some emergency planning. Then furlough came out, so we furloughed some staff. And then again, after three, four weeks, the world began to go, oh, we can all work this way, we can all work from home. And clients started going, yes, we can have project meetings on this, this is fine. And it went back to normal. But because we had furloughed staff, I was then back in account management and jumping on, like, not quite completely bald, but very, very little hair, probably terrifying our clients! And so that is I think the only thing I looked back with frustration at COVID. You know, I probably should not have been back in the business that early, because I still then had to continue doing surgery and radio and chemo whilst also working and again, I would not recommend that. But yes, we took a lot of time off, but, that was what COVID got in the way of.
Jenny 23:57
You said that you did a zoom call and by that stage, you’d lost some of your hair. So obviously, your clients were aware. How did you handle it? This is just a practical question really thinking about if anyone else is going through a similar thing? Did you make an announcement to your clients? Do you explain it to clients? How did you handle the news in general, with both the team and the client?
Rebecca 26:30
So we have always, or I always chose to be completely honest and upfront, from the very get-go of everything. I didn’t tell them when I was potentially sick. But I told them as soon as we knew I was sick. I remember telling the entire team all together with Keith’s diagnosis, we were in the morning stand up and I said, Look, I’ve got some news to share and I told them. Then when it was me, I took everybody aside, actually ended up one on one because it felt like something bigger, and it was really going to affect me. So we had these one-on-one conversations. And do you know, it was amazing having those conversations, how many people that have said things to me – I didn’t know that three of our staff had parents or aunts or family members who either were currently in treatment, or had completed treatment. So that honesty suddenly brings out all this other empathy and all these other stories and that’s why I am so honest about it. You know, we joke sometimes, oh God we are like the Cancer Agency! But I think that it is better, I would rather share it and share the learnings and share the experience. And I think honesty is the most important part.
Jenny 27:36
So tell us to complete the treatment journey for both you and Keith, bring us up to date with where you’re both at.
Rebecca 27:44
I was given the all clear in July 2020. And I am perfectly fine. I’m completely healthy. I maintain some very basic treatment. But I am perfectly well, and they have no concerns. My incredible team put up with me dropping out every six months just to keep the health anxiety at bay. But they I mean, we literally just walk in and have a chat and if there’s nothing major for Keith, but fast forward to July last year, his cancer came back. He had recurrence, which was very unexpected and at that time, he was given 3 to 12 months to live without the success of a treatment. His team put him up to the Scottish Medical Board for immunotherapy, which is not typically used. But because he was very young, very healthy and met all the parameters, they said yes. He has been on the treatment now for just over a year, something like 14 months, or 15 months and he currently has no evidence of disease, he has had a complete response. They are blown away by his results.
Jenny 28:45
Honestly, I am so pleased for both of you for the outcome of this. And what a hell of a ride. What a hell of a journey. And I know a lot of people say this to you, Rebecca, but I know that your whole kind of spirit, the whole way you have handled yourself and faced this challenge has been just so inspiring. I am just interested in two things. One is the foundation that you have set up, I’d love to hear, obviously, through that journey, what led you to do the foundation, and also about the podcast and what your thoughts are for the podcast. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
Rebecca 29:27
Absolutely. I guess in the four tumultuous years that we’ve had my mindset changed quite a lot from just growth for growth’s sake, we want to get bigger, we want to get better, we want to get all the bigger clients too, but I want to be people first and we have always been people first but I want to be very people first and I want to be doing good and I want to be doing work that has a real purpose behind it. Not just any old work and I refuse to work for any toxic clients. I don’t want our staff under any massive unnecessary stress and I know that you can either run like a lifestyle business, or you can run a business for growth. I used to be stigmatised by the lifestyle label and think then you have to run a lifestyle business. And now I still proudly run a lifestyle business, I don’t want our team sick. I don’t want anyone to go through what we did for the last four years and I don’t want to do it, I want to be able to work with clients that I really like, I want to be able to make the profit that we can make for the size that we are, without any needless stress or anxiety, and also use the agency as a platform to do other things. And that’s where Lemur came around. So I said, I really wanted to do something with more purpose, we’ve always worked with charities, we’ve always given time away or offered a discount or offered a discounted day rate and I wanted to do something more concrete, and hopefully something that could become bigger than us. So we started Lemur Foundation, and it is essentially a pro bono scheme where we give away time to clients, and this year, it’s £40,000. But the bigger vision for it is that we want other agencies to be doing the same. We would like it to become a paid forward scheme where our richer clients can pay it forward to charity clients. Then essentially, the longer term plan is that it becomes this grant giving body where you can come and get digital grants for anything digital, and it can be paid to any digital agency. You have to be investing, you have to have a website or be starting something or putting some money down. That’s a percentage grant. But it can be on any topic. It’s not cancer focused, it’s any charity, anyone who needs any support in improving digital tools, because we know that digital makes twice as much impact with those clients than it does for many of our professional services, for example, clients. You know, it really has to work harder for them. So that’s Lemur.
Jenny 31:49
That’s amazing, very inspiring. And we will definitely put a link in the show notes so that people can find out more. And then tell me of “About This Storm”, the podcast.
Rebecca 31:59
“About This Storm”, the podcast! This idea originated three years ago, when I was just coming out of treatment with Keith and had gone through the start of trying to keep the agency alive and starting to tell people about it and the more I tell people about it, the more they gave me their story on how they managed to keep an agency or a business alive and the challenges they had. And I realised all these people out there, unfortunately, there are many of them who have these stories, these situations, they have had to suddenly become a carer, they have IVs challenges, they also have cancer, their partner or parent has cancer, they have a huge accident that renders them incapable or immobile for a while. But at the same time, you have this big responsibility as the director to the business, you have to keep its best interests at the forefront of your mind, you have to keep employees at the forefront of your mind. And for most of us, you need the business to exist to pay you too! So “About The Storm”, and it’s taken from a Brene Brown quote and the quote is- “One day you’ll tell people about the storm, and it’ll encourage people to keep going” – and that’s what I want to do I have invited lots of people who shared their stories with me to share them on the podcast. Basically, tell people about the crazy challenges that people have survived. Because everybody has gone through their hardest day and come out the other side of it, you know, even the worst, the worst possible day. And you look back, and it might still be a bit triggering, or it might have that kind of visceral feeling that yes! you still made it through the other side. And I think mindset and for all the people I have spoken to mindset has played a huge part and it is a massive challenge and it is not something that you can just leave, you have to work on it all the time. But yes, that’s what I want to share with the podcast.
Jenny 33:45
I mean, already, when we were talking about this the other day, and you got me to open up about some of my challenges that I’ve had with my family, and you just started making me cry. So I know that your podcast is going to be so brilliant and well done you for being the inspiration, because like you said, when at that moment telling the team, they started opening up to you. So you showed that level of empathy, and look at all the stories of people coming forward. So I think it’s a fantastic initiative. And well done. I think it is hugely beneficial to a lot of people. And I’m just curious, you talked there briefly about mindset. What helped you with your mindset over these last few years.
Rebecca 34:28
When I was first processing everything, I used to do a lot of yoga and meditation. I was trying to do a lot of that and it didn’t really help, so then I moved on to journaling and for a long time, throughout my entire treatment, I kept a blog, which was really cathartic. And you know, really helped to get it all out there and explain what it was like. I’ve pulled it down now so I have all the content. Then it was after Keith’s most recent diagnosis, I really, really struggled. It felt you know we have done everything, We have done our dues, I don’t need another drama. And so again, Gordon had met this mindset coach and said, look, let’s give it a try, We have done serious business coaching, this was proper mindset coaching. And so for the last almost year now, since January, I have been doing a very specific type of mindset coaching called non duality. Which, as soon as I started doing it, suddenly made me realise, oh I think this is how I live and I just didn’t know that was a thing. I didn’t know that you could think this way and that there was some history behind it and some reason and some belief that other people have two really high levels of non-duality, and it teaches that you are not your thoughts, and you are not your beliefs. It’s all about working with your consciousness, and shining a light on where you want it to go and seeing it happen. So it’s like, extreme visualisation, I’m not selling it well, my coach, if he watches this will be horrified.
Jenny 36:01
Because this is how we met, wasn’t it? Because I’ve been on a three-day mindset course, which was all about non duality. You saw that post I did, where I was blown away by it and you said, “Oh, my God, I had a mindset coach as well” and that’s how we connected. I am the same when I am trying to explain it to anybody else. It is really, really difficult. But working with someone and first of all, you are resistant to it. But actually, you felt obviously what you just described, that there was a bit of a coming home feeling, you thought, well, this actually feels really comfortable. So yes, how long were you working with this coaching? And what were the points that were really helpful? Was there anything you can share? any moments that really, the penny dropped, or that were the shift moments?
Rebecca 36:52
Yes, I was – I was resistant to a lot of things, not just him, I was being pushed to try and get some more therapy to get some more support for my needs, etc. and I was just resistant to everything. But at the same time in a really bad place. Like yourself, eventually you recognise that goodness, it’s not me, this is not what I am normally like and so I was resisting everything. Then January hit and I had to do something. So I signed up to go and I started a new therapy, and I started working with Rob my coach and I remember the first call and just thinking this is nuts, he is nuts! This cannot be what we have just signed up for and paid for. Then as we worked through it, you know, one of the phrases they use all the time is “Be – Do -Have”, so that you have to be something and feel it and dwell on it, in order to be moved to do something that helps you become it, and then you will have it. So it is very much about feeling into where you want to go and what you want to happen and having that visualisation, but just knowing as well that it will happen, and you will, you will work towards it. For a long time, I was thinking I am just going back and forth with this. I mean, I felt very much like I was coming home that I had this very positive mindset and I used it for a positive good and I could see that it had worked if I look back across my life. But at the same time I questioned does it? Then it came to thinking about case results and I don’t know, I just had this moment where I thought, I know Keith’s going to be fine. I can’t explain it. I knew he was going to be fine and I have previously been the person who can work through a lot of therapy, going right let’s do the worst case scenario. Let’s plan all the worst case scenarios, then I will be well prepared. You know, we planned for everything – the demise of the business, the demise of me, the demise of Keith, and I just didn’t, I had no, I did not go there, I did not feel it and he had a wobble the day before we went in and I just said look, I know we are getting good news honest, I can’t explain it, but I know, in my gut that it’s going to be good news. It was and you know, his doctor should not have been there that day and they both were. I don’t know why they were there , but they both were. So we had time with both of them. They were both bouncing around starting to talk about cures and laughing again about how he was the guinea pig. We have known them for a long time really and they have always had a really open, very easy and approachable manner and things had suddenly come back, you know, from that horrible we don’t want to give you this news, to it has suddenly come back and I will say that also gave me a little bit of doing the mindset coaching. I remember our coach asked, you know, what’s the worst thing you could have? What’s the worst thing you could do in a day and running through the typical imagine I had to give client bad news, or this – and then I had this moment where I thought imagine being Keith’s doctor, we know him so well. We know the names of his kids, and we know where he lives and what he likes to do, and he knew all of our story and he was always visiting me or me him. and we would always check in and he had to sit and tell someone who had just done cancer twice, that not only do you have cancer again, but, according to statistics, you will not be here this time next year. I just had such empathy for him and thought, nothing, like not to belittle our industry, but nothing we do is that powerful, and that traumatic. I think, as a human, it takes a certain type of person to be able, I think, to do that day in and day out and as a result,
it’s changed my approach to clients. And, you know, whilst, yes, lots of things are annoying and frustrating and challenging. I don’t look at peoples slightly snarky emails and think oh they are so snarky! it is more well, they are probably having a bad day and you know what, we can probably fix that at some point. And, again, nothing bad is going to happen if the webpage is slightly wonky for a day, you know. So that whole process put it all into perspective for me, it has given me much more joy in what we do and a lot less stress.
Jenny 41:11
That is a really good message for people to listen to and hear from someone that is speaking from experience that’s gone through what you have gone through. And I love that the fact that you had so much empathy for that doctor, at that point, it wasn’t about the news you were receiving, it was about feeling for him. So I am interested in hearing anything else that has impacted you – you have changed your approach to clients, you are not taking things quite so seriously. Certainly not, personally, anything else that this whole experience has had an impact on that you can maybe provide some reassurance to others that have gone through this.
Rebecca 41:53
I think it just builds a layer of resilience. Then it also allows you to see. We have had these four really challenging years, we came out of COVID, having one of the best years we have ever had. We hired ahead of the curve earlier in the year. And our curve didn’t hit and our pipeline, although it looked incredible and was weighted carefully, just didn’t materialise. We still had to make those tough decisions and we had to make three people redundant in the Summer. So I don’t think it takes away from the challenges of the day to day running of an agency and that’s the other thing I wouldn’t, you know, my crazy story doesn’t belittle how difficult I think working in this industry can be and the responsibility and the weight of being a director and being a manager, but I think it does shape the way you approach it and whilst it was awful, giving these three incredible people the news, and knowing that you are going to stick with them for quite a long time, because they were junior members of staff, you are going to be that person- the first person who made them redundant, unfortunately, you are etched in their memory. But again, just being people first we made sure all of them had a job before they left, we made sure they all were hooked up with an incredible recruitment agency up here. We use personal contacts to get them interviews elsewhere and they all left our agency working for other people and now, we are back, we are stable and we have to hire another account manager and so the roller coaster continues.
Jenny 43:22
Exactly , we are getting close to the hour and this has been a remarkable story, a remarkable journey and I cannot help but think there may be some people listening to this going through a shit time, they might be in the thick of it right now, or have just come out of it, or just entering it. Can you share with them any pieces of advice that perhaps you wish you had, or that you now know going through it? What can you give to others.
Rebecca 43:56
I think it’s important to know that you won’t realise what you’re going through at the time, that when you are in the thick of it you are in full coping – we are doing this mode. You won’t have a minute to realise how impactful it all is and when you finally do get out the other side you need to give yourself either a forced holiday or time away or just a moment to breathe and go – Okay, that happened – no matter what it is whether it is redundancies or a challenging really turbulent time with sales, or something happens to staff or yourself. That is what I have learned that you do not realise how much you carry it all until you give yourself a little bit of time to process it.
So make sure you do some processing and find some things. Make sure you have insurance. Make sure you have critical illness insurance, make sure you have business insurance, make sure you have all of it. Because the only way that we got through all of this as a business and personally, it would have been impossible without and it is one less thing you need to worry about. Oh, what else? what other piece of advice? Yes, take the help and ask for somebody else’s opinion, to ask somebody who is outside of it. Especially if you are a lone agency owner. You need somebody who has eyes that are fresh to it, that are not in, because your decisions are so – well for me, my decisions are still bound up in the “is Keith okay? am I okay? When is our next appointment? What’s happening? Is the business, okay? What’s happening with? There are so many things running through your head, I think you sometimes need those moments, and take no big decisions at the time, don’t do anything, just leave it running. Because especially in an agency, there will always be another sale, even in the worst of times, there will always be another sale. And also, if the worst happened, and you had to close, and I don’t think that would happen, because there will always be another sale, maybe you will just be a little bit less stressed. And you start again,
Jenny 45:59
That is such superb advice. I’ve just been scribbling it down. It is practical, but also inspiring as well. So listen, Rebecca, if anyone wants to follow up and have a chat with you, either they have resonated with something you have said and want to get your advice, or perhaps they have got their own story that they would like to share with you for the podcast. Who knows? What is the best way? Or first of all, who would you like to be contacted by? And what’s the best way of reaching you?
Rebecca 46:30
So LinkedIn is normally the best way of reaching me. Or by email, I can give you my email address, I would love to talk to agency owners who have a similar story who maybe have not shared it with anybody or didn’t feel they should and also, it doesn’t have to be quite as much like mine, one thing is enough! I see this with people all the time, people go, Oh, it’s not as bad as what you had, I know. but it’s context, right? It is as bad as it has ever been for you. To compare it with three? I don’t want three. I would happily have taken one and stopped right there. So yes, any agency owner has a story, it does not even have to be a podcastable story, if you just wanted to share it with someone who loves human stories and the sharing, I would gladly talk to anybody. Anybody who knows a charity, who might be interested in my foundation, in talking to us, or perhaps who are doing something similar to our agency, and perhaps we can partner up because that’s another area, I would love to talk to them as well. So yes, oh, and any agency owner who is kicking around at events and sees me, I’d love to have an open conversation.
Jenny 47:39
That is amazing and actually having known you for a relatively short period of time, just in the last year I can testify that you are so easy to talk to and you certainly made me open up to you. So I know that this next phase in your journey is going to be very, very special and you are probably going to give a lot back to a lot of people. So thank you so much for sharing your story with us and all of the lessons that it brought you and for all your advice. Rebecca, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much.
Rebecca 48:10
Thanks so much Jenny.
