We say it every week, but our podcast is once again packed full of insightful knowledge, tips and tricks in and around the new biz agency space! We’re joined by Daniel De La Cruz, Founder and Chief Learner of Polymensa as we talk about his journey, outlook and ethos as well as strategy, advice and future predictions about our industry.

This podcast includes:

• Present technology and future technology, what does it mean for people?

• Barriers for agency founders and how they can look to overcome them

• Becoming and expert in a niche to make yourself irreplaceable

• How you may be missing opportunities that are already right under your nose

• The importance of finding your niche and how it opens new opportunities

Word on the Street is sponsored by Tanba, The Agency New Business Academy, is a brand-new initiative aimed at equipping agencies of all sizes with the knowledge, content, partnerships and opportunities needed to accelerate agency growth by optimising their new business ‘engine’.  Visit https://tanba.io/ to find out more and start empowering your agency.

“I think sometimes we’re just so happy to be working in a job that we love” – Katie Street [10:35]

“You get to this point as an agency in the early stages” – Daniel De La Cruz [13:36]

“When you’ve got 20 people coming to you with all the problems every single day, all you do is fire fight” – Daniel De La Cruz [14:28]

“Diversity of thought and coming at things totally differently with a totally fresh look is so important” – Katie Street [19:35]

“When we learn as human beings, we never learn a topic in real depth by going to the first person who sells him or herself really well” – Daniel De La Cruz [20:02]

“The way you manage your time to my time is going to be so different and trying to go into a company and go you 30 people here’s your framework on how to manage time is ludicrous” – Daniel De La Cruz [21:58]

“Everyone needs to learn in a different way” – Katie Street [24:27]

“A lot of the time the people that go out whether their a trainer, advisor, expert or agency, generally speaking, their level of strictness on something, generally comes with an agenda” – Daniel De La Cruz [26:47]

“You have to have the multitude of different ways of teaching things” – Daniel De La Cruz [28:25]

“I think it’s been heightened in lockdown, how the agency world is evolving and becoming more flexible, becoming more agile” – Katie Street [29:34]

“I think what’s on the horizon that’s a little bit of a worry for me, and I highly encourage agencies to start thinking about this for the long term, is the shortage of resource, as in human resource” – Daniel De La Cruz [30:54]

“Every single business in the world has now suddenly switched in to being like; we’ve got to finally make the move to digital” – Daniel De La Cruz [31:23]

“I just don’t think there will be enough human beings in the world to do all the technical jobs that will be out there” – Daniel De La Cruz [32:30]

“Getting over the fact you’re gonna be rejected and I know this sounds really obvious, but it’s really hard” – Daniel De La Cruz [34:39]

“Strip everything away, ‘this agency is doing that well and that agency is doing’, and all these pressures that are out there” – Daniel De La Cruz [36:40]

“Just finding the thing that people can know you for” – Daniel De La Cruz [37:54]

“How much is it costing us to pitch?” – Daniel De La Cruz [40:29]

“OWNING your own audience is so important” – Katie Street [42:41]

“Having your own owned events works so much harder for you because you’re owning that audience” – Katie Street [43:39]

“A lot of agencies are stuck in this position of, all they’re doing is a client comes to them with a problem and they give them a solution based on roughly past work that they’ve done” – Daniel De La Cruz[44:59]

“Personally I think most agencies that are smart should be doing this” – Daniel De La Cruz [45:46]

“When you’re niching you unlock so many more opportunities” – Katie Street [51:00]

“I think what’s important is unpicking the why, why are people afraid to do that” – Daniel De La Cruz [52:18]

“It takes time to become a niche expert” – Daniel De La Cruz [54:18]

“If you can find a niche and go for it, fantastic” – Daniel De La Cruz [59:45]