Roda meets...Andrew Southcott

Andrew Southcott

Andrew is Managing Director of Captivate Group. Captivate is a group of independent agencies that engage audiences across the digital and physical customer journey. He is also Chair of the Commercial Action Group for the Alliance of Independent Agencies.

1. How do you approach designing strategy for your organisation?

I start with the end in mind and then work back. We define a clear end state, then analyse - as a team – what our current position is, how to get from A to B and what is required to get there in terms of time, people, money, and tooling.

We review this analysis within wider business context, for example client work, seasonal considerations, our existing systems and processes and what the comms plan will be.

Finally, we will take a robust look at the cost / benefit. If it lines up, we go, if not we go back and see if there is a different way of approaching the problem. If we cannot make it work after a second review, we will not do it and the project will die.

2. What were the biggest challenges you faced when implementing your strategy?

The best thing for us as an independent business is the number of stakeholders is relatively few, this allows us to agree a strategy quickly. When it comes to implementation, Momentum is key. A slam dunk project will remain a slam dunk, however slippage, with its associated costs and risks can take a borderline project from proceedable to not.

Additionally, a delayed project can cause problems as industry churn in Marketing is high. If you go slowly and accidentally turn a short project into a multi-period one, you risk the people involved on day one might not be there for the duration.

3. How do you ensure your plans and priorities are understood by teams across the organisation?

This isn’t currently an issue for us. We have 120 people, but in 4 separate agencies, with separate identities, so I can still get the right people in the room at the same time. We have seen as an agency hits 50 people this becomes difficult and we know we will need to bring in new processes to ensure our communication strategies are still effective.

So, for now I am still able to get everyone together and say, this is what we are doing, and this is why we are doing it.

We have some clients who have upwards of 15,000 staff, and they can’t. In response there is a large amount of employee engagement communication briefs knocking around.

4. What resources do you use to help you perform better at work? (tools, books, courses, podcasts, events)

We have a huge number of tools which help us execute for our clients, and which we spend a fortune on them; but we have far fewer that help us run our own business. What we really need is a programme which could help us run our business.

Personally, I use ChatGPT as a jumping off point for lots of what I do. AI is going to be disruptive, and the country is sleeping on it! We are not set-up for the level of disruption it is going to cause.

I also use TikTok a lot, this always raises an eyebrow, but it is replacing google as a search for lots of demographics because of the way it provides short sharp visual explanation of difficult subjects.

There are some books which are popular in the industry, like – How to Buy a Gorilla by David Meikle tells you how to sell in creative services, Agencynomics by Peter Hoole and Spencer Gallagher provides a method for how to run an agency business.

I prefer YouTube and podcasts to books. Daniel Ashville, who runs Ashville Weekly and James Sinclair on YouTube is great. Podcasts like the High Performance Podcast are also good.

5. What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given, personal or professional?

The actual wording of it was ‘don’t be a dick.’ Which I translate nowadays as, ‘being easy to work with is an underrated skill.’ A lot of people can do the things you can do, so your differentiator can be how easy you are to work with. Soft skills matched with T-shaped learning, aka a wide range of subject knowledge, but with deep understanding in certain areas, is a powerful combination.

Secondly ... make things as simple as possible. Nothing makes me angrier than when I see a 100-page deck. Adding more often detracts from the message you are trying to get across.

Finally, nothing matters as much as when you are right in the middle of it. The ability to zoom out and understand that something might feel like really a crunchy business point right now is useful, as in five years, it will probably just be a blip.

6. In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour or habit has most improved your life?

I am more protective of my time nowadays. If I get a sense that there are more than two plates spinning, I try to rebalance.

Another idea I like is Martin Moore’s ‘no bullshit leadership,’ which articulates a method for how to only focus on the things which matter most to your business. Think of your business as an equaliser with lots of faders. If you try and push all the faders up a little bit, it will not make any difference. The key is to understand which one or two faders will make a demonstrable difference and then shove them up to maximum.

7. What are the worst recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

My gut feeling is that you will never be criticised by someone who has achieved more than you. When getting feedback, you need to consider if the person giving the recommendations has done what you want to achieve. If yes, listen. If no, then reflect on whether what you are being told is just noise. You have to be a bit of a professional sceptic with some of this stuff. You look at LinkedIn, and there are a lot of people who are just lying; they have not done what they said they are doing.

Very little is actually new, so surround yourself with positive people, who have done what you want to do and can advise accordingly. There is no need for you to learn lessons painfully that have already been learnt by others.

8. What has been the most worthwhile investment in yourself that you have ever made? 

I am now solidly middle aged. With a bit of luck, you should get to 60 in fairly decent nick, but there are very many different ways of being 70+years old. The investment I am trying to make now is for then. Move more, drink less, eat better, reduce the stress.

9. When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?

It’s ok to go and scream in a dark room but then come out swinging. Gumshield in, helmet on, lets go…because the mood of the most senior person going into the room will be the mood of everyone coming out of the room at the end. This rule does not apply though if you are an A&E Dr, so there has to be some sense of magnitude here! But generally, you need to try not to share the stress.

From a practical standpoint, it is important to remember that most problems are not that difficult when they are broken down into smaller components. Also, and this isn’t said enough, its ok to ask for help.

10. If you could, knowing what you do today, what advice would you give to yourself at 18 years old?

Remove toxicity quicker. Leave bad jobs, leave bad relationships. Leopards do not change spots.

If I was advising any 18-year-old now I would advise them internet is forever. I feel lucky that I grew up in an era without a pervasive internet. Similarly, any parent now I would advise extreme caution about the digital footprint you are creating for your child. There is a reason the people that own these platforms don’t put their kids on the platform.

More positively, I would try and take more risks, particularly in that period from 18 years old to the point you become a grown up, which comes to us all at some point sooner or later. At some point you look around and think, ‘a grown up needs to deal with this’ and then you realise that’s you. I would make more of that window. Chat to the girl, go for the job, try an oyster! Most of the things I worried about, never happened and many of the things I enjoy, I wish I had tried earlier. It took me 40 years to do my first stand up set. Just get started...

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