How Laura Humphreys Scaled Her Agency to $15M and Sold It to Ogilvy

[00:00:03] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale a Business Podcast. My name is Hector Santhe Esteban, and I'm your host. Our special guest today is Ms. Laura Humphreys. She is a business mentor. She's had a couple of exits herself and now helps agencies to, , scale their business. So I'm excited to dig in today.

[00:00:22] Hector: Thanks Laura for being with us.

[00:00:24] Laura: Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here.

[00:00:26] Hector: you have a couple of stops along the way. I'm sure it was just wham bam, overnight success, I'm sure. but if you kind of had to, take us to a a few of those key steps, what were some of the, pivotal points in your career along the way that now leads you to, you know, helping, uh, , who you're helping?

[00:00:45] Laura: you know, of course it was, , an overnight success. , No, not really. I mean, my journey, like every business owner's journey has been a massive rollercoaster of ice and lows. , You know, I've had huge ties and ultimate success. Why I've actually built and , sold. Two businesses, but you know, I've also nearly had a nervous breakdown in the middle there.

[00:01:03] Laura: And, I really get what it's like to be a business owner and how hard it is. , You know, my story really is I started out as a, creative person, a, a copywriter in an advertising agency. , Eventually I ended up. , Building, creating my own advertising agency, , which I built to 15 million and sold to a multinational.

[00:01:21] Laura: But as I say, that was a huge rollercoaster of highs and lows and not, you know, not an overnight success by any means. But I did land through that, , period there was a trial and error, but eventually landed on strategies that really worked and took us from being stuck. We were stuck with about a $1.5 million revenue for a number of years.

[00:01:39] Laura: And it, you know, I call it now the hamster wheel, where it just felt I was a typical owner operator where, you know, it was just, still too caught up in doing the work. , Not finding enough time to actually get out there and build the pipeline and build the strategies. And eventually when I worked out how to do that, we went from being stuck to winning.

[00:01:56] Laura: Four major clients in one year, , you know, which were worth, you know, over a couple of million each. And then we, from there, we really took off. , And that was how I was able to grow quite rapidly and, achieve a successful sale to a multinational, the Ogilvy group. , So really, you know, that's my kind of understanding is that, , it's very easy to get stuck.

[00:02:15] Laura: It's very, as an owner operator, particularly for business owners, it's hard to get past that, you know, being the one that's doing all the work and build a team. And, , so, , yeah, that's been my kind of experience really, is that you have to, , go beyond being an owner operator and really step into learning how to be a CEO.

[00:02:33] Laura: , And good business is really about good leadership.

[00:02:35] Hector: I am curious what sort of either pitfalls or blind spots you find that either you experienced or the clients that you work with now that keep them in that prior state. ,

[00:02:48] Laura: So it's, , the owner is still doing too much of the, doing this. , And when, an owner is spending more than 50% of their time, I. In the delivery. , It's impossible for a business to grow. And I know that from my own experience and now from having been, I've been mentoring now for over 10 years, I've seen companies stuck and I've seen them, , accelerate.

[00:03:10] Laura: , And it's a real mindset shift from the owner to going, I have to let go. And I've got a saying, if you don't let go, you'll never grow. there's a control piece in that. . I was just on a call with a agency owner just before who, , she's got a team of people and , she said, I just have to keep stepping in. And it's a trust issue, you know, and where that comes from is that I. , The owner hasn't really put in place the systems and the training to enable people to step up and to grow. , And when an owner, , keeps doing, keeps stepping in and keeps keeping control, it actually compresses, it pushes everybody down.

[00:03:47] Laura: , So there's a mindset thing about you have to let go and you have to trust. And in order to trust, you have to put the systems and the training in place. To enable your people , to flourish and grow. , And they're really hard things to do.

[00:03:59] Hector: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up both of those because I know I've dealt with that in all its capacities, and so I go, okay, let me trust, and then all of a sudden the, problems pop up or the quality isn't there, or whatever it is. Right. They don't do it as well as me or, you know, and, I've had to learn.

[00:04:16] Hector: Hard way. So it's like, where were you, you know, two years ago? But this conversation is really relevant because now I've sort of realized that we need to have those systems in place that in your words, allow them to step up, because that's also what's gonna enable us to scale and, you know, enable us to continue on.

[00:04:35] Laura: It's a systems thing that it's also a culture thing. You know, and in my, program I run, a, I run a thing called the, , I call it the Flywheel, which is a sort of, it's a, system of, seven strategies. And one of them is called A Players Only. And it's about creating a high performance culture, , , , typically owner operators, business owners don't really think about this, but you have to be really clear on your expectations.

[00:04:59] Laura: Of what you need from people. And I teach, , people how to create, I call it a manifesto. A manifesto of this is what we expect and this is what we don't tolerate. , And then when you have that, when you hire people, you hire people into a. Your manifesto and the other part of that is having really a, inspirational goals for your business.

[00:05:17] Laura: So when you hire people, you say, Hey, look, we are a high performance team in pursuit of this really exciting goal. , And here's our expectations. , Here's what we really encourage. Here's what we expect from people, and here's what we don't tolerate. , And what is your role? , What are you gonna do to help us achieve this goal?

[00:05:33] Laura: and so it's a different way of hiring people instead of hiring people to do a job. You hire people that are inspired by your goals and that can buy into and, , subscribe to your manifesto, your way of doing things, your culture. , And that changes everything. 'cause people who are hired to do a job, just do a job.

[00:05:50] Laura: , People who are hired to actually be part of a, a team that's going somewhere exciting, , come in with a different framework. So systems and training is part of it, but also culture and expectations. , And this is just not something that you typically learn going into business.

[00:06:06] Hector: Right, and I'm looking up at the clock and saying, wow, we can wrap the episode here, and everyone would have so much work A complete episode already. Thank you for that. my question then is, it sounds so simple, you make it sound like, well, that's it.

[00:06:21] Hector: Okay, great. We've got it. But in the actual execution of it, are there any stumbling blocks or are there any things that, , you know, people can sort of keep an eye out for as they're going through this process?

[00:06:35] Laura: Yeah, I mean, of course it's not easy. I mean, the managing leading people is the hardest part of business. we sort of landed on this particular topic, I believe it's the hardest of all, and it certainly was for me. I was a really good leader and a terrible manager.

[00:06:47] Hector: Can you highlight the distinction for the listeners, your distinction between those two?

[00:06:53] Laura: So a leader got the vision, , exciting, can, you know, knows where you're going. , You know, has the, ability to sort of express , the goals and where you're taking people. , But when it comes to management, which is actually , getting people to do the everyday, , tasks, , managing performance reviews.

[00:07:12] Laura: and this is what I find most business owners are, tend to be a particular type, it's the type that it takes for someone to go out and start a business. you are typically a self-motivated, , highly driven person. And so that's the lens that you look at the world through and how you look at other people.

[00:07:28] Laura: So, and I was the classic example of this, where every time when I'd look at my staff and I would think Why aren't you highly motivated? A self-starter, totally passionate, willing to do whatever it takes, all the stuff that I was, , and then you sort of realize that actually if your people were like that, then they wouldn't be your staff, they would be your competitors.

[00:07:47] Laura: Everybody was like the business owner. , So you have to learn that the different types of personalities and a business is made up of all the different types of personalities you need the systems people, you need the steady people. You need the salespeople, you need the different personalities.

[00:08:00] Laura: I really struggled with that because I just wanted everyone to be like me. , And when I brought a general manager into the business in about year four, she was just so good at the, people management, she really could look after the people and she could get the performance from them.

[00:08:13] Laura: Everyone used to call her auntie because she just had this really. Really good way of bringing out the best in people. , Which was fantastic for me because it meant that she did all of that. And then she would just be the buffer between me and my very driven personality and my vision and my desire to drive everything at high speed.

[00:08:30] Laura: , She managed to bring the people along. , , the people part of business is really hard. So when I talk about the, you've gotta build the culture and you've gotta put the systems in place. I put my hand on my heart with huge empathy and go, I know that that's not easy.

[00:08:44] Hector: .

[00:08:44] Hector: Yeah, especially, , I think entrepreneurs are not easy people, but similar to your point, they are the ones that are willing to be self-starters and so. Maybe it's the same for agencies as it is for all businesses, but we can, focus it to agencies. 'cause I know you've had a lot of experience there and I think that there are a lot of, , listeners that can relate to that.

[00:09:04] Hector: But a lot of agencies are driven by that. Visionary Founder, and oftentimes, , whether it's by necessity or by desire, they end up being the one driving the sales and, you know, doing a lot of the business development. And to your point, they can't be doing the work. All the time. And so is there sort of a, blueprint or a process that you see, you know, for agencies to go, okay, here's the who's that you should be looking for, whether that's certain stages, or certain roles or positions, or is it kind of a case by case basis?

[00:09:38] Laura: I've been mentoring for over 10 years and, , I've only really honed in on, , agencies specifically in the last year. , So I've mentored every type of business and, what I encourage everyone to do is to, , as the leader, as the, owner is, to be really clear where you're going.

[00:09:55] Laura: To have a really, really clear goal, a picture of what the ideal end picture looks like. I, I encourage everybody that works with me to set the 10 times financial goal. not because the number matters, but 'cause when you think like that and you set a 10 times revenue goal, you have to really change the way you look at, you can't do that.

[00:10:15] Laura: By being an owner operator, by being stuck in the weeds by doing all the work. You know, you actually have to shift your mindset. And so I get everyone to put a really clear picture in the future of what would that look like if you were to go for a revenue goal like that. , What kind of clients would you need, you know, and how many of them you need, and what, would you be delivering?

[00:10:32] Laura: What are your products and services in the future? Are gonna create that level of growth. And then what's the team that you need that's gonna be able to deliver that? And I get them to actually draw up a sort of an organization chart, if you like, a structure and an organizational design for the team of the future.

[00:10:48] Laura: This is the team. I'm gonna need to deliver that perfect picture in the future. And then you come back to today and you go, okay, where am I at now? And you kind of look at your organizational design and you go, okay, over time, say I've set myself five years, , or 10 years, which is what I did. I'm here now and I'm pretty much doing everything and you know, I've got a small team and I'm doing most of the work and I've got this picture in the future of a self managing company where, you know, I've got a fully self-managing team, , which you need, if you're ever gonna build a business that's gonna be saleable, they're only gonna buy.

[00:11:19] Laura: business that's self-managing, , no one's gonna buy a business where the owner is doing the work. , So then you go, well, this is where I am today, and which roles am I gonna start to fill first? , And, you know, which are the most critical ones and where am I still doing the work and which are probably the easiest ones for me to actually extract from and put someone else into.

[00:11:39] Laura: , And I literally did that. I literally, over time, you know, the first person I hired, , was a copywriter. The reason was is that I was a copywriter and I'd been a freelance copywriter before I started my agency, and I thought if I keep doing the copy, I go out and get a client and then I do all of the copywriting for the ads and for the marketing, then I'm just gonna stay a freelance copywriter.

[00:11:59] Laura: So the very first person I hired was the person that could do the job that I was best at. , And I think that kind of highlights it really is that, , there's another mindset part of here is that often an owner operator that, you know, has built a business around their particular talent of, you know, a very reluctant to let go of doing that because they feel like they're the best at it.

[00:12:19] Laura: , And so there's an ego part of that as well. It's like you actually have to. let go of the stuff that you are good at and bring in other people that can do it as well as you, and ideally can do it better than you. you, you really build your future agency starting or future business starting from now, and you replace it, as you go forward.

[00:12:36] Hector: I'm so ENT that we're only at the halfway point. I mean, I'm gonna go back and listen so many nuggets here that we can, , dig into. So, , excited to go even deeper, , right after this quick break. , Hey, on today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a podcast and content production company.

[00:12:51] Hector: Well, we like to think of ourselves as like the media entity of your business because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a passionate product, a mission, a message, something that you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to be able to do it well.

[00:13:03] Hector: If that's the case, we can help go to Amplify Mediacom mediacom. You can also check the show notes. And with that, let's go back, Laura. So Laura, you've had a wealth of experience, a couple of lifetimes of careers, I'm sure. Are there any. , Particular stories or moments that you look back on or you think back to often as being pivotal in your sort of mindset or perspective when it comes to growing businesses now?

[00:13:38] Laura: I was really blessed that I did something at the very beginning of my career. , , I was working in advertising as, a copywriter, , I went to do a, workshop, a personal development sort of program, , with a guy called Robert Kiyosaki. , He wrote The Rich Dad Poor Dad books.

[00:13:54] Laura: And I ended up going to his, he was running a 16 day business school for entrepreneurs in Hawaii. And I was a freelance copywriter and I didn't have a business. felt compelled. It was something that just went, I've gotta go. cost me about 20 grand, I think, to, get there and do this, be in this fully residential, , thing in Hawaii.

[00:14:13] Laura: , Couldn't afford to do it, but I felt this real calling and, . I got there and there was entrepreneurs from all over the world, really impressive. And I was really intimidated. I was very out of my depth. , And the first thing that, Robert did is he had the room in this big conference room of all these business owners and he made everybody stand up one by one and, , state a really ambitious goal for their business.

[00:14:34] Laura: You know, and I didn't have a business so I was just, you know, as it was going around the room and everyone was standing up and declaring this, these goals I was just waiting it for to get to me and I didn't really know what was gonna come outta my mouth. And I stood up and said, , I'm gonna build and sell an advertising agency within 10 years.

[00:14:49] Laura: I. And everybody clapped, you know, as they did. And I sat down and went, wow, okay. You know, that just came outta my mouth. And that was how I started my, business career really. I knew nothing about business. I was a creative person. I spent 16 days at this business school and every day we got to work on this plan.

[00:15:07] Laura: And we used a technique called pert, which stands for , Performance evaluation review technique. , Apparently it's what NASA used to put a man on the moon, you know, it's really complicated. , I googled it once and it was just too complicated. But really when you boil it down to its simplest, it's you start at the end to work backwards.

[00:15:22] Laura: , And so, you know, NASA had a really clear idea that they wanted to see a picture of a American astronaut. On the moon with an American flag. And then they worked backwards with all the things that they needed. You know, they needed astronauts, they needed to train people. They needed, gravity defying space suits.

[00:15:38] Laura: They needed rockets, and they worked backwards and put in place a plan to create all of those things. And so we spent 16 days building a plan from backwards from that, goal that we declared. And so when I came back to Wellington where I live, I started an advertising agency and I had used this plan that I'd created at this business school, and I didn't know any better.

[00:16:00] Laura: , But I'm absolutely convinced to this day if I hadn't done that, I would never have approached business in the way I did because right from the very start, I had a very clear goal that I was building a business to sell it. And that, , I needed to go into it right from the start with the mindset of, , building something of value and building something that wasn't dependent on me and being a CEO.

[00:16:20] Laura: And hence why I, the first person I hired was a copywriter because my mindset was always, I've got to keep moving myself. Up to the point where I'm not doing any of the work. Like I knew that from day one. , And I really honestly think if I hadn't gone to that business school, I would never have even thought about it that way.

[00:16:38] Laura: , And so, it is been completely pivotal. It's how I built. You know, both of my businesses that I've successfully, , exited from. , And that's really now what I teach is that, kind of wherever you are at in your business journey, you know, and you don't have to be at the beginning.

[00:16:51] Laura: In my, , program, I run cohorts, and in the cohort I'll have someone who's in the sort of early stage in the first couple of years of the business and someone who's been running their business for 10 years or 15 years. Wherever you are at, there's a plateau that you naturally reach and wherever you are at.

[00:17:05] Laura: That's the moment where you really need to think about where do I wanna be? You know, what's that future goal right now? And work backwards from there. , And it works, you know, because when you work backwards from your future goal, you can see the pathway. When you stand in the future and look back, you can see I always sort of liken it to, a train journey. Like if you, you know, you're at the end destination and you look back and you can see all the stations that you've passed, and then you come back to the beginning to where you are now, and you go, okay, what do I need to do now to get to that next milestone? , And then you move forward one station at a time to get to your destination.

[00:17:39] Laura: it's just the way that I've built businesses and it really works.

[00:17:42] Hector: I really like it. And I'm curious if you think there's any difference in, how far you go out. You know, I've heard people say one year, three or five year, you know, you pick 10. , Do you think that that sort of aids in, in this process because you're able to, think further out

[00:17:59] Laura: yeah. There's a fantastic , business coach called Dan Sullivan who wrote, , 10 times as easier than two times. It's my favorite, absolute favorite book. I get everybody in my world to study it. , And Dan says that goals don't kill entrepreneurs. Deadlines kill entrepreneurs. . The idea is you set that 10 times goal and then you give yourself enough time to make it seem realistic.

[00:18:22] Laura: You know, if you say, I'm gonna, you know, 10 times my revenue and I'm gonna do it in the next two years, you'll just go, that's ridiculous. I'm not gonna do that. And then you just won't even try. But if you say, I'm gonna take five years, or I'm gonna take in my case 10 years, the great thing about that is that I had this really big goal to get to 15 million, , and I was a freelancer, you know, I was earning about 50, you know, so.

[00:18:42] Laura: , you know, but I didn't have to get there tomorrow. I had 10 years. So, you know, so one way to do it is to set the, formula that I use, is that if you work out what you wanna get.

[00:18:52] Laura: So, you know, what, if you sell your business in whenever, 1 million, 2 million, 10 million, a hundred million, whatever it is, then you can work out what your revenue based on a, a multiple of your EBIT profit. , Say you get a multiple of four or five or six of your profit, , , you can work out what your revenue needs to be to get that sale price.

[00:19:10] Laura: And then you go, okay, then what is the timeframe that you feel that that's realistic to get there? and then if you go, well, actually I don't think I could get, I that would take me 10 years or even 20 years. And you go, You either change the size of the goal or you change the timeframe so you can go, actually I only wanna do this for five years, so I'm gonna go for half the amount and it's that I know I can achieve in five years.

[00:19:32] Hector: .

[00:19:32] Hector: Yeah, I really love this. , It's a great framework that I think has such great downstream effects. there are so many things that are going on in the macro economics sort of environment. , AI technology, tariffs, I mean, like, , I'm just curious which ones you're paying attention to. Which ones you think are worth business owners specifically, maybe even, you know, agency owners, or if, if it expands to all business owners, which ones are things worth, , Preparing and investing time into, and which are, not.

[00:20:04] Laura: the only one I really think that is, and particularly for agency owners is ai. I mean, of course there's no doubt that , it's completely, Disrupting everything and it will completely disrupt what an agency's role is in the ecosystem of, you know, delivering value to clients.

[00:20:20] Laura: there's always been political, economic, and I've been through, you know, a number of recessions Those things will continue to be There'll be recessions and you work out your strategy for recession. We are quite recessionary here in New Zealand at the moment, and, we've got a government that's, taking a very, , hardcore sort of budget and not spending anything.

[00:20:40] Laura: And it's, you know, so for a lot of businesses that's meaning that everything's gone flat. But it's like, it's a moment in time. sometimes you write it out and the best thing you can do is, is keep going. Look after your clients, write it out and it will change. But AI is not something that's, you know, cyclical or whatever. it's continually going to keep. Disrupting and changing everything. So agency owners, , particularly because it's going to change what clients actually need from their agency and what they feel they can get through, sort of AI , So that's the one that, , you know, in terms of my world, my community, . I teach a, flywheel of seven strategies, which are really business strategies. But when agencies are in my community, once they've done that first program, you know, I'm gonna be continually, , finding the best advice, the best support, what do we need to be doing and how do we need to be evolving , and how do we need to pivot and change, , in the face of what is gonna be massively disrupting?

[00:21:38] Laura: you can't deny it.

[00:21:40] Hector: Yeah, absolutely. . Laura, I'd love for you to share with the listeners. I've got one more question after this, but before we do that, I'd love for you to share with the listeners where they can find out more about you. , I know you've got a number of, of offerings and ways people can kind of get more involved with you and, and learn from you.

[00:21:57] Hector: , So where's the best place to go for people?

[00:21:59] Laura: , Definitely go to my LinkedIn , which is this Laura Humphreys. I'm posting and sharing pretty much daily, and it's a good way to see, you know, my thinking and what I'm offering. , And then if you, do like, , what I say and you sort of want to kind of find out a bit more, you can, book a call with me from LinkedIn.

[00:22:17] Laura: There's some resources there that you can have a look at as well.

[00:22:19] Hector: Cool. We'll be sure to link all that up in the show notes as always. , Laura, last question here. In your opinion, what is the key to.

[00:22:30] Laura: , As much as I've already sort of discussed, really for me, the key is to be really clear where you're going, set a really, , big enough goal, and then put the strategies in place, which are around I. Your offering might be really clear who your ideal client is, , what offer it is that you're taking to market, what your unique positioning is in the market.

[00:22:51] Laura: , Who that ideal client is. , Make sure you've got a team of high performing. I. You can't scale a business without a high performance team. So you need to understand how to put a high performance culture in place. , You need to have a consistent sales system, , that is continually taking your offer to your ideal clients and build a pipeline for the future.

[00:23:11] Laura: I talk about shallow fishing and deep sea fishing. You know, shallow fishing is the lead generation stuff that's bringing in cash flow clients now. But the, deep sea fishing is the pipeline you're building for those, bigger fish, those really high quality clients of the future. , So you need a system for shallow fishing and deep sea fishing, , and you need a client growth system.

[00:23:30] Laura: You not only need to land clients, but you need to actually have it built into your culture and your systems that your people know how to grow your clients. , And then the final piece is that you need to bring all of your big thinking and all of your strategies into some way of managing what you're actually doing in the next 12 months, in the next 90 days, and having some way of, , measuring.

[00:23:50] Laura: your progress as you go forward incrementally, , so that you take the big goal and bring it into bite size, pieces that you are working to. I tell everyone in my world that you really need. No more than eight core drivers or objectives for the year. So you pick the eight things or less than eight if possible, that if you really nail them this year, they'll make a difference to your long-term goal.

[00:24:10] Laura: And then you break that into 90 days and you get all of your team on board with what are we doing in the next 90 days that's going to enable us to, achieve our goals this year. So my whole thing is in eight weeks, I take people from where do you wanna be? What's that big goal through to what are you doing in the next 90 days?

[00:24:26] Laura: , So that's the journey that I take people on and it's been my experience of that's how you scale think big, and then bring it back to bite-size pieces.