Have you ever reflected on the “crucible moments” of your life: key experiences that forge who you are? I’ve recently reflected on one of mine that began 31 years ago this month: starting up the Paris office of marketing consultancy Added Value. I left in 2001 to do a second consultancy start-up with the brandgym, just as Added Value got bought by WPP. It became part of Kantar then sadly disappeared.
In this post, I look at what I learnt from my start-up experiences. Maybe it will inspire you to look at one of your crucible moments!
1. Find a buddy
One of the biggest learnings in my Added Value Paris experience was the power of partnership. Each of us has “signature strengths”, as I posted on here. These c. five strengths are ones you’ve probably had since childhood. They are pretty much unbreakable. But they are far from all you need to be successful.
Having a partner can dramatically increase the chances of success of a start-up, or any businesses venture, I suggest. For Added Value Paris, my partner was the marvellous Marie-Hélène Boyer. There were so many areas where we had complementary capabilities: she was French, I was a Brit; I led Finance, she led HR; I was a detailed planner, she was all about action.
The same story has been true with the brandgym. Without my brilliant buddy David Nichols, there is simply no way we would have been as successful over the last 23 years. In summary, DN is “strategically creative” and I am “creatively strategic'”. There are major projects we’ve won and done, including beating much bigger consultancies like Accenture and WPP, that I could simply never have done solo. There are thousands of smaller micro-moments when having a sounding board has been invaluable. And so much “professional fun” we’ve had together too!
2. Accept and embrace friction
My Added Value experience with Marie-Hélène was not all smooth sailing. There were plenty of moments of tension! A lot of this was down to the different strengths we had, as outlined above. The easy route would have been to give up and split up. However, we accepted and embraced the friction, recognising it was part of our different ways of working; it helped create the energy and fire of the crucible moment. Together we went on to grow the busienss to 50 people, something we would have been unlikely to achieve alone.
3. Have a bold ambition
Early in my career, The Added Value Paris experience showed the benefit of having a bold ambition when you start a new venture. This applies to a new business but also counts for starting a major new project in an existing business.
When Added Value founders Mark Sherrington and Peter Dart decided to open a Paris office, they could have gone for the conservative, low-cost option. A shared office space on the outskirts of Paris, for example. Instead, they rented an office just off the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, big enough for 15-20 people! This was a clear demonstration of the ambition they had for the French business, for prospective clients but also for Marie-Hélène and I . Our mission for was clear: go out and win enough business to fill the office with a sizeable team! Mark and Peter’s approach also demonstrates the importance of leading through actions, not just words. By renting a big office from the get-go, they showed they had 100% confidence that we could build a successful business.
With the brandgym, the approach was different. The business was virtual from the start with no offices! And we built a small team of senior, highly experienced coaches, rather than a big team of junior people. Instead, the ambition was to do with being thought leaders on brand-led growth. We have over-invested on creating content to build authority in our three core areas (see below): publishing a series of eight books, writing over 1,600 weekly blog posts, carrying out 18 annual research projects and launching The Mastering Brand Growth program, which has had over 600 participants to date.
4. Focus, focus, focus
The temptation for any start-up, especially in the consultancy space, is to have a long “shopping list” of services. The hope is that by “throwing lots of balls” at a potential client, they will want to catch one of them. However, in reality this approach is unlikely to be effective. It is hard to build both fame and authority when offering multiple services.
At Added Value Paris, we positioned ourselves as France’s first “marketing agency”. We offered insight-led brand growth strategies by creating a team that combined qualitative researchers and experienced marketing directors.
The same approach has been critical to the long-term success of the brandgym. We have remained ruthlessly focused on three key services (see below). The action plans we work on to deliver these in the market has evolved dramatically, to embrace social media and more recently AI, for example. We also deliver these services in different ways, with team-based projects, AI-led projects, personal brand coaching and marketing capability programs.
In conclusion, my two start-up experiences, both crucible moments, show the importance of having a bold ambition, clear focus and the right partnership to maximise your chances of success.
