Back into Agencyland: Sept 2023

With the Summer coming to a glorious end I thought I should reflect on the last couple of years and update my friends on "The State of Dan". Read on if you have a couple of minutes....

As some of you may know, I've been working as a marketing, media & agency consultant since selling SearchStar (now Adapt) May 2019 and exiting Dec 2020. I've assisted about a dozen firms across that time and enjoyed my involvement with all, as well as feeling I delivered the value they wanted (generally growth). My strengths are in building teams, sales & new business, agency finance, marketing & digital strategy.

I've been as busy as I want to be ...SearchStar was successful and several agencies wanted a sniff of the secret sauce. However my worth to them was always to an extent going to be time limited - contact books fade etc. I'd seen various under-employed consultants hawking their past glories with ever-increasing desperation and knew not to overstay my welcome. Potentially a coaching course might prolong my value but I've enough self knowledge to know I don't have the academic discipline.

My work with the agencies generally delivered growth of varying satisfying %s and there was part of me that was jealous of that success. I realised I didn't want a life sitting externally giving advice...my real joy came from being inside the business...seeing the team thrive....going to the Christmas parties.... enjoying the wins!

So I've now chose to cut down the number of firms I work with and become a shareholder in the two I feel most comfortable within.

I'm therefore delighted to announce that I've become a minority shareholder in two digital agencies - Suso Digital and Varn. I've known both for several years, worked with them both for +12 months as a board advisor and now we are cementing our relationship.

Varn is a 25 person strong digital marketing agency based just outside Bath, I've known the founder, Tom Vaughton, over a decade while I ran SearchStar and always admired his ethics, early adoption of environmentalism (Varn has a beautiful woodland office where the team work from once a week) and deep commitment to delivering great results for clients. Tom is regularly invited to speak at BrightonSEO and is widely recognised for being one of the "good guys" in the sometimes murky SEO world. Whilst rooted in SEO Varn are actively growing the paid media side of the agency. Some of the team from SearchStar have already joined and I look forward to welcoming more paid team members. If you are wondering if Varn could turbocharge your SEO & paid media then please get in touch.

Suso Digital is an SEO agency but with a totally different market position. It offers superior SEO support to the world's best agencies. Only a small proportion of their work is for clients direct. Originally UK based when founded back in 2012, Suso migrated its technical SEO team to Poznan in Poland in 2016 and now has 65 staff of whom 45 are in Poland with the rest spread across the UK, India, Columbia & Mexico. The agencies it works with are c. 75% US vs. 25% UK and include some famous names especially in PR & Comms. It's a massively professional team with great processes and the ability to deliver against demanding SEO targets. If you are an agency, anywhere in the world, interested in a top class SEO partner who is happy to be white-labelled, I'd urge you to get in touch with Suso.

All this said, I'm still working (less intensely) with a few others agencies notably Yellow Peach , Wonderland Comms , Our Name is Mud & Navigate Digital . Finally I'm working as an adviser for Brunel Industrial Engraving . The founder, Martyn Wright, was my client for over a decade and brought me in to guide the team taking over the reins as he retires.

If you've made it this far then why not say hello? I'm always happy to catch up with old friends and if I can help professionally then even better xx