From no clients to the importance of a simple hoodie: 6 things we’ve learned after 6 months of jnr.
John Marshall and Ryan O'Connell's move was big news in the industry, and now six months into the new venture, jnr., the co-founders are providing some insight into what starting an agency is like, with the six biggest things they’ve learnt in the process.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been six months since we announced we were launching a new, independent agency called jnr., in a maelstrom of press releases, flash-looking hoodies, and one cute dog.
Here are the six biggest things we’ve learnt in the process, to commemorate our six months of jnr.
1. Apparently, you need clients. Who knew?!
News flash, but apparently you need clients to run an agency?!
Jokes aside, it did raise some eyebrows (and concern!) amongst our peers when we decided to open up an agency without having a foundational client. In fact, we didn’t even have a meeting, coffee or pitch lined up. However, we backed ourselves to win some business, and we’ve been blessed to land four amazing client partners in our first six months.
Despite the obvious need for revenue, we’ve been pretty selective too, and have knocked back more than a few opportunities. We want our client partners to match our creative ambition, and what’s been exciting is that we’ve already found four that have! These partners have also completely bought into our mantra of keeping things ‘smart but simple’, along with the creativeffectiveness guide™ we developed. That’s helped build our confidence immensely.
Rather than be daunted by the prospect of not having a client already lined up, the ‘sink or swim’ reality was motivation to really get out there and chase them.
The big learning for us was that sometimes you need to just jump into the deep end. Sure, there’s always doubt, apprehension, or an excuse not to take a risk, but if you remain positive, optimistic and committed, you’ll realise you can, in fact, ‘swim’.
2. The industry can be cruel, but the industry can be kind.
If you spend more than 30 seconds reading the comment sections of some websites, you might think that the industry we work in is incredibly cruel.
Launching our own agency has shown us the industry’s true colours: it’s incredibly kind. We were absolutely blown away by the amount of people that reached out to us and asked, “What can we do to help?”. It was pretty moving, to be honest.
We had founders and owners of other indies, and heads of some of the networks, buy us coffee, lunch or beers, and give us advice, tell us mistakes to avoid (that they had personally made), provide helpful tips, and give feedback on our creds and approach.
One founder even recommended us for a pitch in our first week, and another gave us some templates, documents and legal advice – saving us a huge amount of precious start-up dollars. It was amazing. Just unbelievable generosity.
It taught us that we aren’t all crabs in a barrel, climbing on top of each other to survive. Rather, it showed us that this industry is full of kindness, with plenty of big-hearted softies keen to help out. That’s awesome.
3. It’s a roller-coaster!
As life-long Warriors and Bulldogs fans in the NRL, we’re both used to riding the 80-minute roller-coaster. Yet nothing could have prepared us for the intense ups and downs of running your own business.
Pitch wins. Pitch losses. An innocent coffee that leads to a massive project. Proposals that go nowhere. A short text that produces the biggest opportunity for the agency. Promising email conversations that end abruptly. A LinkedIn post that leads to winning a client. Missing out on hiring a dream recruit. A surprise call from an ex-client you haven’t spoken to in 5 years.
It’s an absolute ride!
Yet when it’s your own business, every win and every loss takes on greater significance. There really is a wave of emotions that you ride, literally on a daily basis.
What we’ve learned is to stay relatively balanced. Don’t get overexcited about the highs, don’t get too down about the lows. Everything moves so fast, that you can’t dwell too much anyway, as you need to be ready to chase the next brief, coffee, pitch or invoice.
4. Effies matter.
There’s a lot of award shows out there. Yet the one award that clients (that we’ve spoken to) really care about is Effies.
It was made abundantly clear to us by numerous people, including helpful pitch consultants, that we needed to massively dial up the 50+ Effies the two of us have helped win for our client partners over the last five years.
Whilst it’s felt a bit unnatural and awkward for us to bring up – and we were conscious said Effies were won at our previous agencies – the feedback was consistent and clear.
It reminded us that it’s a massive achievement we should be proud of, and that when it comes to client partners, effectiveness rules above all else.
After all, as a marketer, if you’re not making work that delivers a healthy ROI, then you’re just flushing money down the drain.
5. More than just a hoodie.
When starting jnr. it was important to us that we created an agency that was more than just another start-up. We needed to have a real point of difference. We needed a brand, an idea, and to execute it.
From the agency name, logo, positioning, job titles, remuneration model, stationery, and even down to our simple hoodies, we’ve tried to create a brand that people – but more importantly, client partners – wanted to be a part of.
Why would a client trust us to help build their brand, if we can’t be trusted to build our own?
And yes, to all those who have reached out, you’ll be able to buy a jnr. hoodie very soon!
6. You can’t do it alone.
While the popular expression in the industry for launching an indie agency is “Going out alone”, the reality is that you’re really not.
From day one, we’ve been lucky enough to have a consistent 7-person ‘creative collective’ across Aotearoa and Australia. This experienced team of creatives, designers, producers and studio operators are super talented, but more importantly super nice. It makes it easier doing this with people you know, trust and have worked with previously for several years.
We also welcomed an amazing senior business director, Danielle George, to the agency last month, and her addition has been game-changing for us and our client partners.
Special shout-out to both of our wives, who really have felt like part of the team. They’ve been amazing in their support and pushing us to realise our dream. They’re also incredibly attractive and we’re both batting way above our average. (They made us put that bit in.)
Finally, you need a ‘partner’ in every sense of the word.
We’re not really in the habit of giving each other compliments. In fact, anyone who has spent any time around us will know it’s the exact opposite! However, we could not have done it without each other.
One founder mixes eternal optimism with a constant ‘ants in their pants’ impatience to get moving (Ryan). The other founder exudes a ‘cool Kiwi’ façade mixed with a healthy internal paranoia and militant attention to detail (John). The differing personalities and traits have only added to the adventure.
Without a doubt, our biggest learning over the last 6 months has been that you need to partner with someone you trust, someone who keeps you honest, someone who keeps you humble, and more importantly, someone who reminds you that the water is warm, so dive in and start f*cking swimming.
John Marshall and Ryan O’Connell are co-founders of jnr.
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