0:00 Introduction and background

Welcome Nick, thank you so much for joining us on what is our first ever podcast of the UK. Our first guest, no pressure. For our audience, it would be really good if we could get an intro to you, a little bit about who you are, your background, before we get into the business itself. Certainly, well thanks very much for having me. My background has been as a marketing director. I’ve risen through the ranks of different marketing roles and eventually became the marketing director, marketing leader. I’ve been called all sorts of things over the years: field marketing CMO, VP of marketing, and all these sorts of things. As a result, I’ve helped grow, develop, and nurture marketing teams, working very closely with sales teams, service teams, and the rest of the business at board level.

4:30 Why Secret Source was born

Over many years I would deal with lots of different agencies: PR agencies, digital agencies, you name it. I also ran bid teams, business alliance teams, inside sales, so I did quite a lot under the umbrella. Dealing with external agencies and judging agency awards over the years, I picked up a lot on campaigns and how they operated. I realized that to help a fellow CMO or sales director, agencies needed to be a lot more accountable, a lot more proactive. Rather than just waiting for the brief, we decided we could be that proactive agency. If we learned something on another account, we could ring up another client and say, wouldn’t it be great if you did this? So Secret Source was born.

9:00 The two inflection points

There are two inflection points where companies need help: high growth and troubleshooting. High growth is the primary one. The size of organisations we work with can range from literally an idea, from a startup that may be investment backed, all the way through to enterprise size businesses. We can go in and deploy a team and be able to sort of help out. You and I originally connected because startups need marketing but often can’t afford to bring in a full CMO. We can work out exactly what a company needs at what time and deploy accordingly. We have a flexible model: rather than hiring or onboarding different agencies, we have a core team and bring in relevant skills at the right junctions.

13:30 The library office

We like to be slightly different. We preach about clients disrupting marketplaces and differentiating themselves, so when it came to choosing our office, we practiced what we preach. About six or seven years ago, local libraries were closing down. We approached our local library, a lovely 16th-century building east of Stamford. They were open one day a week and about to close. Now they’re open six days a week, servicing tens of thousands of residents. Our team couldn’t wait to get back after lockdown, which is nice.

18:00 Sales, marketing and revenue operations

Marketing and sales are often seen as separate functions but they’re not. Especially today, you can’t have one without the other. I’ve always worked with successful marketing teams where the culture was healthy because it’s one business challenge overall. There are targets to hit, customers to look after, partners to nurture. That shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of either the marketing or the sales team. Revenue operations is a big drum we’re banging at the moment. It brings together not just sales and marketing but also service, putting the client in the middle and treating them pre and post transaction.

22:30 Startup marketing checklist

For startups there are some real challenges. There are loads of checklists out there covering financial planning, marketing, promoting the business, budgeting, and finding talent. We’ve developed ways of working that knock off several of those points at once. We have the talent, skills, software, and tools, so we can free business owners and investors up quite rapidly. The key is building the foundations right from the outset. If you put in tech and then try to overlay the wrong processes, you accelerate the wrong things. We tend to stop CEOs and say: just check yourself, make sure you get the building blocks in place, and then when you do accelerate, everything will come good. Get in touch at secretsourcemarketing.com or via social.