In this episode, we speak to Jonathan Leafe, the Managing Director of Leafe Consultancy.

His extensive career has seen him working both in-house and in-agency before starting his own agencies, Leafe and Marr, and then Strawberry, a thriving ecommerce agency. Jonathan is now a consultant helping Digital Marketing and Creative agencies fulfil their potential.

In this episode you will hear:

• The biggest mistakes agency owners make when it comes to talent
• How agencies can nurture talent more effectively in 2022
• The benefits of having employees grow within the business rather than recruiting from outside
• Why some Founders have a fear of growing their agency past 13 people

Links & references

Katie Street: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/

Jonathan Leafe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanleafe/

Our Sponsor

Series 5 of 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’. Tanba is an on-demand and affordable solution for agencies looking to upskill their team via training courses, content, and insights delivered by our panel of industry experts, leaders, and partners.

The academy is all about empowering agency teams to get noticed, attract opportunities, increase conversion rates, and reduce the costs associated with the sales process. Visit https://tanba.io/ to find out more and start empowering your agency.

Key Moments

“There’s only three things you need as an agency, you need fantastic clients, you need a fantastic team, and you need a fantastic leadership team.” Jonathan [9:14]

“Most agencies have an open-door policy they’ll open the door and let anybody in but of course at the same time the back door is open, and their existing clients are walking out of it.” Jonathan [9:23]

“Never follow the invoice, follow the client, make sure that they’re successful cause if they are, you will be as well.” Jonathan [10:33]

“If you’re running an agency or a business and you’re not investing in your people and you’re not training them, sending them to events, then it’s going to be so hard for you to scale your business because you’re stunting your own growth.” Katie [14:18]

“Have the confidence to think you’re in the room because you’re the right person to be in that room because you’ve done your diligence and worked out they are a perfect fit for you and therefore you are a perfect fit for them.” Jonathan [24:31]

“Being the right choice and being honest about it and being honest when you’re not which I think that’s another reason for qualifying out of the opportunity if it’s not right.” Katie [24:55]

“The amount of time I spend talking to clients to kind of get them to understand sometimes that actually, Niching is the best thing they can do, and we know this from experience.” Katie [29:23]