We're six months old...
So please indulge us...
[This newsletter is a bit different than our typical posts, but normal posts will be resumed after this one!]
Meet the 85% officially turns 6 months old on August 20th. I'm sharing this a little early due to deadlines, holidays and the fact I didn't want to post it on a Sunday!
The journey so far has been everything I expected and more, so I wanted to share a few updates on what's happened in those 6 months, and some learnings I've taken from the journey so far.
PROGRESS
If we align progress to the 4 areas that contribute to IKIGAI (one of the models I looked at that sparked the idea for the business) it’ll help organise my thoughts.
IKIGAI: Do something you're good at
Being a humble person sits at my core, but I do have confidence that I - and my partners - are delivering good quality and good value products to our clients.
Some recent testimonials:
"Meet the 85% took a low-interest, intangible subject and unearthed powerful insights that gave us a real sense of the lifestyles and priorities of our target audiences."
“Meet the 85% helped us understand what was going on in the cupboards and wardrobes of our audiences in the UK and across key European markets, and what their buying behaviours and beliefs were. The insight unearthed added real value to our work.”
"The reality Meet the 85% brings is essential to the future of our industry and brands. Our recent project would have been impossible without its insight. Mark is the King of Real."
When I reflect on some of the work we delivered early-on (just 5-6 months ago), I see a nascent product that we have improved moving forward. The quality of the work is undoubtedly getting better.
And we have a high repeat rate from our clients - with the majority of our clients coming back to us after working with us once. I'm hoping that's partly because of the personality and approach of the business to help our clients.
I'm comfortable with our strengths and weaknesses, and I can build the company around my personality and ideals - instead of having to mould my personality and ideals around someone else's business.
There are areas I'm not very good at though, of course, and I work with a network of partners and experts. Each brings their expertise to the right projects.
And - with one eye on growth - we have brought a Business Advisor onboard - my old mentor Andy - to help guide us on our journey. I’ve known Andy for years (he was my first boss when I first became a planner!) and our relationship has continued via London, Singapore, Myanmar and Northumberland! His remit: "Help us make the best decisions to maximise the potential of the business" - and it's working great so far. He's bringing some objectivity, and years and years of experience in areas I have less.
IKIGAI: Do something the world needs
I think the metric of success for this one is quite simple: I am astounded by how many people have reached out to us because they see a need in their organisation - agency or brand - for the kind of work we do.
We deliver the reality their audiences are living. Reality first, brand second. However inconvenient to your brand or board, we share the reality you need to understand to grow.
Agency-wise, I've lost count of the amount of CSOs/ Heads of Planning who have reached out (many of whom we're now working with) that have a similar story:
"Me and my teams have no time, but we crave richer research to help elevate our strategies and creative output."
Likewise from brand organisations, there's a similar theme:
"We have so much data it's bewildering, but it still leaves us with huge blind spots about our audiences and the role our brand really plays in their lives."
Beyond agencies and brands, we've also started looking at other income streams that have a high level of interest for me: opening up relationships with NGOs in areas I'm passionate about, investigating interesting social and innovation opportunities via grants, and partnering with friends around the globe and friends in different industries to create proactive opportunities.
We've recently joined Group of Humans - a distributed community of curious, collaborative, creative people - as another opportunity to work on interesting briefs for brilliant clients. Our work there is in its infancy, but I'm hoping we can add value to a range of clients by delivering top-class research and strategic consultancy.
Here are some of the briefs we've answered in the first 6 months/ are in the process of answering:
"Do people say one thing, yet act another way when it comes to sustainability?"
"What are the views of Gen Z when it comes to gambling?"
"How do premium food lovers differ from mainstream food shoppers?"
"How can we go from being lost at the back of the fridge, to claiming a visible place in the door shelf?"
"What do the clothes people wear say about them in the different roles they play in their lives?"
"Do people really care about our brand, or are we fooling ourselves?"
"Can you use your experience of being a senior leader in agencies, and your skill of interviewing people, to conduct some internal consultancy for us, and tell us where you think our agency could be in 5 years?"
(This one is a bit different - but equally fascinating.)
There are also some projects we've not converted, but would also have been incredibly interesting:
"What is the role of our packaging when people eat our [fast food] at home?"
"How secure and insecure are people around the UK now, and what does this mean for their voting intentions?"
... and a few others I can't mention.
We’ve also ran some Planner Training via the APG, and via agencies too. Helping agencies and individuals build some of the skills needed to try and understand people in their natural environments.
IKIGAI: Do something you can be paid fairly for
Deep, ethnographic research isn't the cheapest kind of research. It takes time to set up, time to conduct, and time to percolate and formulate the findings. Not to mention the depth of content we deliver - which all needs safely storing, tagging, transcribing, editing and collating.
So when I launched the business I was clear that we're not for everyone, and there will be lots of briefs that aren't right for us. Which in business terms means sometimes it's a game of quality, not quantity of briefs.
Even with that self-selective approach, commercially we've achieved 76% of our annual gross income target, and 84% of our net income target within the first 6 months.
I'm learning how to price products so they're good value for clients, and offer a fair return for the business. I'm learning which products lead to bigger gross incomes, yet smaller net incomes, and vice versa.
If we can keep our conversion ratio up, keep delivering a range of different products, and keep delivering our product to higher and higher levels I'm confident the next 6 months will be even more successful.
IKIGAI: Do something you love
Those 3 above are all kinda meaningless unless I'm enjoying it.
And in short - I am loving it!
I am of the mentality that you're a long time dead, and that we need to live and die by the decisions we make in life.
In the current climate it'd be all too easy to err on the side of caution, and I wouldn't judge anyone for doing that. But I felt a burning desire, a need, to want to try something new - something that is truly 'mine' to shape and build.
And the 'shaping' is a big part of the enjoyment - how this thing is growing, adapting, evolving into areas and opportunities I didn't even know about 6 months ago.
I've somehow reached a point where I am:
Working longer hours than I have for a long time (but doing that by choice as I'm enjoying work more than ever);
Earning a decent living;
Being less 'stressed' (although there are new pressures for sure);
AND - incredibly important to me - seeing my family MORE than I have ever in my working life (I’m only in meetings that add value and I only travel when it adds value - different to old agency life).
So far I'm proving to myself - and others if you want to believe it - that IT IS POSSIBLE to achieve the right balance. IT IS POSSIBLE to really enjoy work, work hard, earn a fair living, AND see your family!
(But it's a constant challenge of course and I might regret writing this section in the future!).
I went to a talk a few weeks ago in Newcastle, and
said "the cost of failure in the North East is less than in other parts of the country" - meaning, because the cost of living is a little lower, you can give things a go with a little more freedom. And I feel that. If we lived in the South - or in London - I simply wouldn't have been able to give the business a bloody good go as I would have been beholden to a larger salary and larger outgoings.Plus - getting back to love - I love being back in the North East. A few years ago I never thought I'd ever move back, yet now I adore living here again. The people, the countryside, the community, our home.
When we moved back - being a strategist - I had a strategy. It was called the ‘best of both worlds’ plan.
An experiment to see if it would be possible to get all the benefits of North East living (slightly lower cost of living, more affordable housing, community, countryside, the beaches (OH MY GOD THE BEACHES!), slower pace of life that leads to a better work life balance etc)) with being able to visit London as often as we like (for the amazing culture, visiting the family we have down there, the buzz, the art, the diversity, the opportunities etc)...
And so far so good - 'the best of both worlds' strategy is going OK so far, and running Meet the 85% is a huge part of enabling that.
LEARNINGS
Like every person, and every business, it's evolving as its moving forward. And I'm trying to do that thing that we all say we do (but rarely do) which is actually reflect, but also learning from making mistakes too.
Here are a few things that are top of mind when it comes to some of the learnings so far.
Be true to who you are and who you're not
Even when you think you're staring down the barrel of failure, be true to yourself! You have a better chance of succeeding by being you, instead of trying to be someone or something else you're not.
If your proposition is a good one, the good will out! Believe!
Things can turn on a sixpence
Connected to the above - I've literally had days where in the morning I'm working on a proposal and in the afternoon I'm having to resource 3 projects that have just been confirmed.
One of the adjustments of doing your own thing is losing the reassuring regularity of a salary. Of every month your bank account being replenished. Shifting your mentality can take time, and there are still 'lulls' but you learn how to cope with them.
(Lulls: This is contextual, and I've been lucky so far that I've always had something on the go).
Be collaborative not competitive
The more I do this for a living, the more I realise there are other companies who do something similar. That's normal, and I'm not uncomfortable with that. I am a realist too that some of those companies will be better placed than us for various projects. That's inevitable.
I'm approaching competitors as potential collaborators - literally. I've reached out to many in the hopes of collaborating, sharing learnings and working together more. So I'm shifting from having a bunch of people who all want to eat the same lunch, to a bunch of people who each bring some ingredients to the table.
Will we pitch against each other at some point? Yes. Will we win and lose against each other? Yes. But can we also help each other? Can we collaborate? Can we become more than the sum of our parts when needed? Absolutely.
It seems to be working well so far.
Take feedback from those you value
A couple of months back I rang around a few clients.
I was looking for some feedback on their experience of working with Meet the 85%. I wanted their honest views on what they valued, and what they thought we could improve. It was invaluable input, and has helped me develop the ongoing business plan.
Don’t lose that objectivity that external perspectives can give you.
The offering can evolve if the core remains consistent
From some of that feedback, one of the clients said to me:
“It's not just the interesting content and findings you unearth, it's how you bring it back to us - it's a CSO-to-CSO relationship that helps us shortcut and accelerate what we can do with the findings."
I found that fascinating, and it's allowed me to bring clarity to the products we offer:
Conversations: The research offering. (This also covers observational ethnography but I like alliteration so it had to be a 'c'!)
Consultancy: Bringing my experience of agencies, strategy, and now research and consulting with clients with and beyond the Meet the 85% content.
[Coming Soon]: Watch this space - exciting!
Make mistakes, but learn from them
I think there's a load of garbage written about the importance of making mistakes.
Loads of people say they encourage it, but don't really.
Loads of people make mistakes, but don't learn from them.
For me, I've given myself permission to make mistakes so long as I learn from them. (In reality I have no choice - I AM making mistakes, so I may as well learn from them!)
Some mistakes I think I've made so far:
On one project, I was experimenting with pricing and different ways to deliver what the client needed in interesting ways. I made a mistake and made 3% net income, and 97% was paid out to suppliers. DOH!
(Learning: Get tighter on pre-commissioning 3rd party costs so you can forecast more accurately).
I've spread myself too thin in an attempt to maximise net income. This nearly led to a drop in product quality until I rectified it and brought in expert partners, sacrificing some margin.
(Learning: Focus on quality product and everything else will follow).
I think I've been in danger of being over-exposed. Like any new business, I wanted the world to know I'm here - but it got a bit much at one point and now I'm saying 'no' to more awareness-driving activities. I want to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
(Learning: It's a marathon not a sprint...)
LASTLY - THANK YOU
I've had lots of chats with lots of people in the first 6 months, and the vast vast majority have been incredibly positive and supportive. There'll always be the odd keyboard warrior, but everyone that has gone deeper than surface level into the business, its proposition and its products has been incredibly encouraging. The support you have given has not gone unnoticed.
To all of you I say thank you!
To the partners, suppliers, friends and collaborators we have worked with, and are planning to work with.
To all of you I say thank you!
To the clients we've worked with so far, and the people we're building relationships with as I type.
To all of you I say thank you too!
All we're trying to do is deliver something that is needed in market, that we charge a fair price for, that I think we're good at, that I am loving doing.
That's the reality.