It’s official, Indulge is 10 years old today! A massive milestone when you consider what we have achieved in this time.
The business was officially established in 2009, co-founded by Pat and Russ in a tiny little office on The Grange. There have been brand changes, studio moves, some epic project wins and a growing team.
In 2016 Indulge expanded to the UK with a new studio in Oxford, headed up by Paul, and with this our team has continued to grow, building on our skill set and expertise in the digital arena, specifically the ability to incorporate UX, UI, and SEO into our website builds offering a more sophisticated level of usability.
So what have we taken away from 10 years in business? Here, Pat and Russ share their wisdom in 10 timeless management theories that have helped shape Indulge…
1. Step back often and focus on your strategy
Look at what won’t change in your field over the next ten years - Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) focused on low prices and fast delivery times.
Having a clear long term strategy is really important to ensure that you do not lose your way. As a small business it’s really easy for the directors to get caught up in the day to day operations of that business. If you’re not careful, by the time you get your head above the parapet it may to be too late.
Carve out time to review your strategy on a regular basis and make some long term decisions. This will keep you engaged and excited about where things are going.
2. Expect the best but prepare for the worst
Ensuring you have an up-to-date risk register or carrying out some scenario planning can help you to anticipate and prepare for potential challenges that might be round the corner. This will guide your planning efforts and aid decisions around what insurance policies you maintain.
There will be many challenges that you likely don't have any experience in solving but should be prepared for. These could include financial, operational, strategic challenges as well as personal challenges such as maternity leave or mental health.
One rule of thumb is to make sure you always have at least 3 months worth of expenses in your bank account. This should give you enough time to turn things around and find resource or projects, depending on the challenge.
3. Empower your staff
As a small team, it's important to empower your staff to make more decisions to reduce roadblocks in the production process.
Encourage staff to work autonomously, manage their own workload, bill/purchase, deal with clients and offer solutions to challenges they are having.
This allows the whole team to be more productive and efficient - we get paid for making stuff, we don't get paid for talking about making stuff.
4. Learning when to say yes and, more importantly, no!
Saying no to things creates room for the big yes's - the work that really matters. Do not spread out in multiple directions. Start with baby steps in one direction.
Focus on becoming the best in the world at one thing - focused training, more experimentation, iterating processes faster. This allows you to budget time, expenses and utilise resources more accurately.
Avoid spreading yourself too thinly by supporting multiple products and services. Successful areas of your business will be dragged down to support unsuccessful ventures.
Focus on customer retention, rather than acquisition as client onboarding costs are notoriously high.
5. Don’t be afraid of transparency
As a business owner, you should be open about how you're feeling, the strategy and how the business is performing. This creates trust across the team and encourages other members of staff to open up.
"As we've approached 10 years I've been able to take a step back and really appreciate what we've achieved."
- Pat Cunningham, Director.
6. Take the rough with the smooth
As the owner of a startup business, you will experience soaring highs and crushing lows. You need to make sure that during the highs you don't get too carried away and that during the lows you don't get too distraught. Both extremes can lead to bad decision making.
You need to try and keep a level head whatever is going on at the current time.
7. Manage client and team expectations
Make sure that you manage your clients' expectations at all times. Do not promise the world and under deliver. All that will come out of this will be disappointment and angst.
Quote properly & accurately and give realistic timeframes and specifications on everything you do.
Similarly make sure you are honest with your team about any challenges that are coming up, they’ll be happening anyway so it’s best that everyone is prepared.
It's always better to under promise and over deliver.
8. Know when to take a break
If you're ploughing 60+ hours a week into your business, there's no avoiding it, you will ultimately burn out and lose faith. You need to know when to take a break and switch off.
If you're feeling beaten down take a long weekend, turn off your phone and do something you love. You'll still think about work a lot of the time, but your thoughts will slowly transform from negative, stressful brooding to inspiring creative ideation.
9. Hire the right people, and keep them
You need great people around you to succeed, people who are good at the things you're not so good at. Russell, Paul and Pat teamed up because their skill sets matched very nicely. Pat had the technical experience, Russell had the UX and creative design experience and Paul had the hands on digital marketing experience.
Similarly, a staff member in the wrong position can leave a lasting negative impact long after they have gone. Make sure you interview people properly; test their skills with hands-on experiments and never hire someone who is not suited to a role because you are desperate. This will inevitably backfire and will cost you more in the long term.
If you do make a bad hire don't beat around the bush, be honest with the employee and try to find a role that works for them.
Once you have built your team, keep them happy. Have regular staff socials & buy them bacon rolls on a regular basis. Make sure you are supporting their development, hold regular staff appraisals and 1 on 1's and give them time to work on personal or non-client projects.
10. Don’t lose focus on sales and marketing
A successful service based business is built around 3 pillars: delivery, sales and marketing.
All too often people team up and start a new business because they are very good at a particular thing (in our case, designing and building websites). As a result the production side of their business is exceptional, however sales and marketing are often undervalued and overlooked. This can cause issues as the team starts to grow as it increases the chance of your team becoming under utilised due to a gap in your pipeline.
If you want to grow your business beyond 3 or 4 staff, you need take sales and marketing as seriously as production. Once your team starts to grow you need to fuel that team with solid, good quality opportunities that are driven through your sales and marketing activities.
Our past, present, and future…
Our team is growing with 3 new job opportunities in Oxford and Guernsey!
If you have experience in web development or digital marketing and would be interested in working for a premium digital agency contact us today at [email protected].
