Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you seeking inspiration? an industry expert, looking for insights, or growing your career? I created the unknown origins podcast to provide access to insights and content from creators worldwide with inspirational conversations and storytelling, about art, architecture, design, entrepreneurship, fashion, film, music and pop culture. Andrew Dobby, founded the global strategic brand agency and made brave with 1000 pounds of personal cash in the bank, and a two week old baby at home. Very brave. And as everyone knows, bravely, always pays off. A photographer and graphic designer by trade. He has 20 years of experience in the creative industry, with a turnover and circa of 5.5 million, made the brave helps large global giants like V Lux, Diageo, Medtronic Edrington first Group plc KPMG and Nestle to grow and strengthen their brands. Hello, and welcome, Andrew. So what inspired and attracted you to pursuing your career as a creative in the first place, and then ultimately, running your own creative agency?
Andrew Dobbie:I think I'm one of those people that have always been creative. You know, I remember sort of an early age, I was quite fortunate actually. My mum, she kind of nurtured that creativity in me, if you like. So, as early as I can remember, a lot of my evenings and weekends were spent doing comedy and competitions. And, you know, she always had me drawing and kind of nurtured that and, you know, took me out in a boat to go draw landscapes. And then we were to write down what colors we saw. And then we go back to the house, and then we to paint those landscapes. And so yeah, I was very fortunate. Because I suppose with creativity always thinking, is it? Is it nature? Is it nurture? And so yeah, that was fortunate to have a mum that kind of nurtured me. And I'm actually adopted weirdly. So it wasn't that it came through the bloodstream from her, but I've since I've since met my, my birth, grandparents, and funnily finally, actually, they're, they're both artists. So my grandfather's an art teacher, my grandmother is an artist. So there were there was obviously something in the in the floodplain and then and then have the luck of being adopted into a family that nurtured the creativity.
Roy Sharples:Sounds like you had the best of both worlds? I haven't.
Andrew Dobbie:Exactly. So because I think I think something you know, not everyone gets that, that that same nurturing of a talent. And so yeah, it was very, very fortunate in both respects.
Roy Sharples:Specific to your story, upbringing, and genetics have been key to shaping your outlook. And having your creativity nurtured from the off, must have instilled creative confidence within you, which is often countercultural to how the education systems function, because traditionally, they are designed to educate people out of their creative capacity, primarily because the British education system in particular, was designed to meet the bygone needs of the Industrial Revolution, where recall is valued over imagination, and therefore stealing children away from the subjects that they actually enjoyed and would have been really good at this education system has maintained our mains for a specific commodity. And sadly, this is soul destroying advice, and fundamentally wrong. However, many people who evolved into being creative pioneers did so off their backs, not because their education system enabled them along that journey. It discouraged and ignored the difference in potential for example, Marlon Brando, Salvador Dali, John Lennon, were, I believe, expelled from from school because of their indifference and, and they challenged the system. Creativity is the core of humanity. And breaking rules is what creativity involves. And the rebellious nature of the mind is a catalyst to create. Now, that does not mean breaking the law. It means questioning the status quo and treating what you do as a blank canvas to self Express and provide an alternative
Andrew Dobbie:Kids these days! They're they're very, they're very fortunate, aren't they? Because, like, you know, I look at my son, my son's 10 years old and you know, I think we why we're seeing such a boom in creativity at the moment, you know, in today's world, and, you know, basically, we've got tools that YouTube, you know, that we just didn't have. So we only had the information that we're given by teachers. Yeah. But suddenly has been flipped on its head and in today's world to thrive, and you know, and to be a great creative, you just need to have the ability to learn, or the you're the main set to learn. And it's all there. No, isn't it? It's not like ball. And I'm one of these people, I don't know that there's a name for Ecademy rubber. And just when these people need to keep learning, I'm always like, last week, I learned the Rubik's cube. And I was like, I need I've always fancied that and I've kind of got that mindset of someone else can do it. I can do it. And if the information is there, which is no, you know, you can you can literally do anything, can you?
Roy Sharples:Absolutely, yep, you're spot on. So, you know, beyond that not so that knochelmann process combined with your, your genetics, your obvious genetics as well, but you're clearly I creative person from from the off. What then made you gravitate towards establishing your own creative agency and the entrepreneurship track that you took him?
Andrew Dobbie:Yeah, well, I've never known that word entrepreneurship my whole time growing up, you know, no one I knew owned a business or, you know, later business. And I still actually can't spell the word. So if you're failing required, then I'm gonna have to go look it up. And but yeah, no, I'd never I'd never contemplated running a business. I think, school when I got into high school, I very quickly learned, you know, creativity is where I'm, you know, but I thrive I remember a maths teacher saying, I don't think hire masters for you. It's not that, you know, I'm not cannibal maths well known, but you know, they're just the obviously identified what they maybe couldn't. So yeah, I gravitated to, like, near, you know, kind of graphic communication, technical drawing, you know, kind of wood work and music and art. And so I very quickly, you know, during school, I also played in bands. So I play guitar. And so I played quite a young age. And I was still actually, I'm either going to be an architect or a musician I can was where my head was out while I was at school. Yeah. And I kind of looked at musicians. And I thought, it looks really hard to make money, this looks like you've got to, you know, it's like, you've got to be very lucky to have can strike it big. And so and maybe had a slightly sensible kind of view then, in terms of, so I went after staying in art. And so I, I think I was like one of the first kids in my school to get a PC. And I used to make all this sort of fake IDs for people. And by the time I got to 60, and that was me kind of practicing my first, my first uses of Photoshop or Corel Draw, I think it was like back then. And so I came across a course in Glasgow, called Multimedia design and production. And so I think I think it was the course because I like the picture in the in the brochure. It's definitely some kids, you know, obviously sit and read computer screens, and there's sort of nice graphics on the screen. And I thought that was cool. That looks like it looks like something I'd like to do. So I went studied there. And did this kind of multimedia design. And it was kind of a little bit of everything. So you learned a little bit of flash animation was director at the time by Macromedia, there was you know, you did a lot about photography, a little bit videography, a little bit design a little bit, and I suppose to try and identify where the strengths your strengths were. And when then went off to Paisley uni and did multimedia systems. And that was, so I'm 14 Oh, so that was when I was 18. And that was literally just as the internet was sort of figuring itself out. So you know, we were, they had just coding stuff very quickly, later on there was not a coder. And, you know, that was kind of back before web pages, and had CSS for the styling of his own tables. And, you know, we're doing all the database stuff and all that and but, you know, during that course, I think I very quickly realized, no, I'm very visual, and ideas based visual. And, you know, I can see developers are very different from me. I mean, I can see the people that were great in those preps. But again, you're in these courses, and they kind of force you through it, you know, you're still doing development, even though clearly he could have focused that effort over so and then when I left university, a friend of mine started working for a Scottish football, and Paul McStay who's in Scotland me? Yeah, so a technology company and located in Austrialia now? Exactly! Support was probably just finishing his football career. He was the Scottish captain and the Celtic football captain. So for anyone listening, that's kind of like, the Celtic and Rangers are probably the two most famous teams in Scotland and obviously Scotland team myself. So Paul had just finished and he was doing for coaching for kids and was kind of looking to develop some creative learning platforms. And so I joined a Another friend of mine, and it's Paul's business. And we, you know, we just sort of self creating illustrations, animations, and all this kind of stuff. And then my friend left, we're traveling, so it's just me and Paul. And then I stayed there for eight years. And I suppose I kind of learned my craft, and it was only ever a small business. So there was only a maximum, I think it was about eight people ever. And we, we ended up doing a lot of property brochures and design. But again, being a sort of self starter, I used the time there to learn photography, I used the time to kind of self learn design, and just kind of kept on kind of trying to sort of better myself in terms of my skills and talent there, and yeah, I stayed, I stayed there for eight years and had a great time with that business. And then a little, a little twinkle in my eye came along. So my slice, my wife, became pregnant with our son Finley. And I very quickly realized that you need a little bit more money when you've got children, and childcare and nappies and all these these things that you need to buy. And it was a small company. So there wasn't an opportunity to grow there as such. So I decided at that point to go freelance. So I left a Polish company and I went out as a freelancer. And, you know, as I said, never in the world thought about creating a business, you know, all of those years, and obviously, spending eight years after university, I'd never thought about it either. It just hadn't come into my thought. And that first year, and obviously, I literally no joke, and I had last week, so most close to 1000 pounds in my bank, and my son was two weeks old when I took the jump. And as you can imagine, a lot of people thought I was slightly slightly unhinged. Looking back now, I probably was either unhinged or naive to what I was doing. But I think those moments in life often are the catalyst in a lot of people. And I've seen it, you know, through other career, other people's careers. And by business, it's often number one of changes in terms of commodity and you know, survival almost, because you've got to provide. So yeah, I left and I thought I'll just go over as a freelancer. And because I was around babies, I thought all I could do baby photography and seeing sort of seeing the trend of baby photography in America. on Flickr, I think of the kind of newborn or swaddled and wrapped up really shallow depth of field and thought, I've not seen anyone do that style here. So I sort of do that. And I very quickly realized babies are not easy models. So I think, you know, as I was doing baby photography, I also went out and did wedding photography, at the same time, and I was doing sort of freelance design. And I suppose I just doing them all because I had to, but I sort of wanted to see which one rose to the top. First of all, so. And yeah, that first year, so that was kind of 2011. And very, very quickly, I realized the design, the design side was where my focus should be. And I'd obviously already learned a craft in terms of design, photography, etc. And when I got into the world, I realized I was actually quite good at business side. I got both from I enjoyed it. I'd worked in carphone warehouse for many years as a student. So I realized I could sail. And I've learned I've learned to sail and I've learned to talk to people. And I've learned I've learned all those skills of No, just come in very handy. And yeah, I think I just, you know, the first little while, you know, you're hustling doing whatever you can to make it happen. And yeah, I think we're by by a couple of months, we were so busy. That, you know, I shared a room with some freelancers. And we still have clients coming in and pretend they were my team. Here's the team literally just literally just me and yeah, I yeah, I needed some more support. It was again, it was getting stressful, coming home stress headaches, too much to do try to do everything at once, etc. And yeah, there was a guy sitting across from me who was way better designer than I've ever been. And he was a little bit GD dove. Maybe not not enjoying the business side of running, you know, being a freelancer in terms of chasing invoices or not getting paid and so on and so forth. And he was ready to go and join the police. And I said, Don't join the police because your fantastic designer, that'd be such a shame. So the creative world, why don't you work for me and he said, Andrew, I've got kids and I need a minimum of 30,000 pounds and I was like shit, I don't have 30,000 pounds and you know squirreled away a few 1000 By the end and put them in the bank and I had a realization that I don't need 30,000 pounds because there's a probation period which is in the UK. So that's three months. Yeah. Waiting means if someone's on 30,000. Well, rough maths are two and a half 1000 pounds a month. So your risk is seven and a half 1000 pounds is actually, I think I probably had about that. So I felt, okay. Well, later, when we sat down, we had an adult agreement that said, Look, if we can make it work, you call today to join the police. So he, he started and became a creative director for me, and which allowed me to come off the tools, or more so of the tools, I was still at that point, I was still doing a little bit of everything. And yeah, by, by the end of the year, I just followed that same pattern. And I had six full time employees. And I hadn't gone to the bank, I hadn't borrowed any money, which just basically turned you know, I just done the same, the same model whenever that person to pay for anything more than that, and did that again and again. And, yeah, it got busier and busier. And, you know, I suppose we started, we were using social media. So I know everyone knows that social media is best used to tell stories, and for people to kind of see progression, and so on and so forth. But again, back in 2012, when really knew what social media was quite, it was still figuring itself was because Facebook was new. And, too, we didn't put any of our work out on social media. Like every other agency that was wasn't, so it's natural that we're using it for, we just put out the narrative of growing the business. So we were sharing, and I was I suppose I was using the photography skills, I had to document it. And it was, so we did it in a way that was very creative. I mean, for anyone listening, if you go and look in the made brief channels, you'll get very quickly get an idea of the attention to detail we put into our own content was was huge from the offset. And, and we kind of did that because we thought no one else will be bothered to do the same. So it makes us uncopyable. If that's, if that's a term, so we were documenting it. And most people, most people in the creative industries love to call for creative awards. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But at the beginning, I was trying to get our business to sustain itself. And I thought if we call for creative awards, all of our peers, the creative awards, and we're in amongst agencies that have been around for 10 or 20 years longer, and us and it customers. So I went to the Business Awards, and we won all the business awards, because we were a fast growing business. So and what were we at the business words, we were the creative ones in the room. So then we had a roomful of customers who wanted to be at the creative table or what see what the creative table are doing. So suddenly, you've got a client list. And you know, you're able to have people to build connections with and get us customers. So that kind of strategy started to work for us. And because we were building the narrative on social media, and kind of sharing everything in the, you know, the the great parts, the bad parts, just, you know, building the whole thing. I suppose we grew up big following on Facebook, and which were much easier back then. And as No, no, it is it's much, much, much more challenging to do that. But we grew up following there. And that got the press interested. So we then had people coming to ask us well, how do you grow this business? You know, because by the end of year two, we had 16 people. And again, you know, from I mean, you see businesses obviously growing much faster, no, but I suppose our business from a standing start low investment, to go from zero to 16 people is quite was quite a jump anyway. And obviously I've never run a business. I've never led a team. I don't even work in a business, there was no more than eight people. So you know, there was a lot of learning. And, you know, I'm never too ashamed to know, I do not know all the more I know, the more I know, I don't know, is definitely the case. And so yeah, we had all that learning was going on, we now had 16 People with moved office twice in that in that space. And yeah, but what we realized very early on, or around that moment, is that, you know, I came off the tools. And I think I think that's often a challenge for creative businesses that don't seem to grow is that often the creative wants to be at the helm of everything creative, which is which is an instinct as a creative person. But I I started to get my love for actually seeing the opportunity to grow a brand. And to see that I build a system with great creative work comes out with that it doesn't have to be me creating it. So we started rather than growing an agency, we started to grow a brand. And that was the big mind. shift change was let's look at everything and how do we grow a brand because our service offering was was was changing because, you know, initially I'd been a graphic designer and photographer and suddenly people were asking for websites and we shared Yes. You know, and then suddenly people asking for campaigns, then suddenly people are asking for social media strategies because you know, I think IBM said has a really amazing will you grow your audience and Scotland, could you do the same for us and we're like your IBM, surely you could be doing this for us, but you know, so. So we caught that kind of bias. And we realized less we had this internal focus, let's grow a brand. And rather than, you know, I think often, this cobbler shoes, often with agencies, they're like, Oh, we're too busy on client work, we need to, you know, we need to do our time to purchase stuff for our own studio. Very early on, I said, Look, not made Brave is a client of made brave, it has time it has budget. And we do everything to the same quality as we do for clients, because maybe we'll be here for the rest of time, we'll be doing pay attention to that brand. And also, we wanted to build a brand that people wanted to buy from, you know, I kind of think the creative work should be amazing. That's a given that's, it's like a pair of jeans, isn't it? The shouldn't be great. But you want to buy a pair of diesel over buying a pair of Walmart jeans or as the jeans, right? So we wanted to create that buy ability from from made brave the brand. So everything we did from that point we just went into? How do we build it? How do we make it stronger, better, so paying attention to things like values and culture, and I'm a big believer that brands are built from the inside out of our business. You know, I think the old world taught us all advertising madmen, he like taught us that marketing is just manipulation tool, almost. But I believe in today's world, if you can, if you can build an amazing culture, and sort of, I tend to think like sort of mature brands are the ones that care for and look after the people within them. And if you do that, and inspire them, they'll grow the band outside the world with you. Rather than trying to push a message out the way
Roy Sharples:it's obvious you've got like a strong Do It Yourself sensibility and an instinct, and your resourcefulness. Right your your ability to tap into your innate talent, and expertise is available, but also your ability to quickly spot talent, and opportunities and your your your thought process there around being the standout by going to the business awards, as opposed to the creative. That's a stroke of genius.
Andrew Dobbie:I think you're gonna get that inspiration from Roy, actually, it was worth giving the credit to where credit's due. So I'd read Seth Gordon has a book called Purple Cow. Yeah. And for those listening who have not read it, I'll summarize it here is that he said, Look, you know, well, I don't know if this is a guy who said about the saran remember, he says, you know, when you live in a city, right, you get very used to the city. And it all becomes it's almost like you don't see the city anymore. You see the buildings, you don't see where you are, you've been vitamin urine until you leave the city. And you know, so often at the weekend, most people were going up north to, you know, into the highlands of lax, and you go there, you go over the city, and you see all the hills and looked at the grass. And it's not it's not more amazing than where we were. But it's it's different, right? And you see a field of coast? No, we've seen codes before. But you see, yeah, darling, look at these codes. Look how amazing these codes are. And then there's 10 fields of code. So you start to you don't see the code anymore. Back to being normal, until you see a purple. And the Purple Cow gets your attention. And that really stuck with me is that every time I tried to do something with the business as well said, I would also impose the Purple Code. So you know, how do we stand out differently from everyone else. And an example of that was, is obviously the the awards that we just spoke of there. But also, we grew again, beyond the 16 people that we had, and the space we were in got very, very tight. And we had to find a new space and myself and my operations director, Steven, you know, walk the streets of Glasgow, when are we going to put this business and we had a real vision for the aesthetic of what we wanted to create. And we couldn't find it in the city centre. And we went out to the east end of Glasgow, and the extent of Glasgow was probably a little bit like what Shoreditch was in London, maybe 1520 years ago, right? So it's, it's a area that's had some harder times. And but it's now kind of regenerating itself. And we went over there and we saw an amazing space and the Commonwealth Games was in Glasgow in 2015, I think and there's a company called Clyde gateway, and they built these brand new buildings and had shuttered concrete walls and industrial ceilings and I was like, this is this is this they take and people said to me, you have Andrew, you know, that's the east end of Glasgow and undesirable area and you know, all the businesses in the center and I thought, well, still a Purple Cow, isn't it? Because if we move to the East End, you know, people often follow creative businesses, and it does and it's a win win for everyone because we get the space we want and We're able to get a great deal on the building. And we've got the aesthetic we want. And then it also helps the East End. So what that does is create a story. It's a narrative. And it also does some good by giving back. And people need to write and fill their blogs and content on a daily basis. So this gave, this gave a narrative that just added another layer to the made brief story. So Oh, my God, everyone's made brave has gone East switch, you know, and it worked out perfectly for us. Everyone wanted to come to see the studio because of how creative it was. And yeah, I think that Purple Code idea has stuck with me a lot.
Roy Sharples:It's accurate. And to your point earlier about the psychology of people and intentional marketing, and the Purple Cow analogy, the fresh thing, like you go to a new place like like New York, for example, or London, and you notice all the details, you know, like the architecture of the fashion that the cars, the smells, the food, all of that. And then the next time you go there, you still notice that but it starts to diminish your start it does
Andrew Dobbie:it fades away, like human beings as well. They're kind of we're programmed to look for. We're always scanning for snakes or dangers. And so you're scanning for the different, aren't you? I think so I think our brains are programmed. So when everything's the same, you look for something else. So I think you've and business and creativity especially, you've got to try and create that thing that stands out. That's different, though, you know, and that's what we're doing in advertising and everything else.
Roy Sharples:Another point you made around the importance of finding the right space to do your work, architecture and design, influence how people feel and connect them emotionally. It speaks a global language that everyone can understand, regardless of their native language and cultural identity, acting as a catalyst for social integration and collaboration, and empowering people with a with a sense of escapism freedom and source of inspiration to, to create and do their their best work.
Andrew Dobbie:Very much believe like you see there, the physical environment really affects or inspires people or can motivate or demotivate as well. So I think I'm a big believer in all the way through made brave, we've always put a huge amount of effort and time and money into making the space. Amazing. And I was quite fortunate. A couple of years into my journey of made brave, I got to visit Facebook and Google and Pinterest and all these trips out to Silicon Valley. And I was like, Yes, this is it. This is what it's meant to look like. And back in Scotland, no one was doing that. So I thought I'm going to bring a little bit this back. And I thought we'd already started doing it. But I thought I'm really gonna call big on this because I think it really does inspire you, you know, you know yourself when you walk into a nice hotel lobby, you know, you can feel your energy change totally. And if Yeah, especially creative people, I think you've just got to vibrancy in life. And energy is a big part of the motivation that comes in with an industry
Roy Sharples:an influential figure that you mentioned earlier on there. Paul McStay he graced the world of football. With art, he played it like a poet would, and he's one of the finest Scottish footballers of all time. What was he like to work with? Assuming he brought that style grace and class into his work a
Andrew Dobbie:great guy, and you can obviously see why he was the top is a very modest man. You know, so he would never put himself forward. And I think perhaps we are, you know, he's his greatness comes as team building. And obviously, that's leading a football team leading a business and leading, you know, it's been able to identify strengths around you. And also, also knowing your own and knowing your own weaknesses as well. So, yeah, no, I was an absolute gem of a of a guy. It's actually funny because his brother Raymond, mix there who's also played for Celtic, as my commercial director, no. So if the McStays aren't getting away from time, and we always laugh, though, because Raymond is always laughing out because I don't know anything about football. I wonder if Paul maybe like that in me is that, you know, I I didn't know who he was when I joined the company initially. And yeah, so we always had quite a lot of laughter about that. Because, yeah, I just I just didn't, didn't appreciate it. But obviously, everywhere we went, we had to like standard, we would go to meetings and you'd stand outside. Well, you know, it seems autographs, autographs, photos, exactly. Giving birthday greetings on voicemails and so on. But yeah, no, I got great guy and a truly sort of values led entrepreneur as well, which I learned a lot from.
Roy Sharples:Oh, that's great. Great to hear. So So what is your creative process? Andrew in terms of how do you make the invisible visible by dreaming up ideas, developing them into concepts and then bringing them to actualization?
Andrew Dobbie:First and foremost, you need to know why you're doing something. So you know Ideas for ideas sake don't generally do anything great. So, you know, made brief specifically, obviously, we're a global branding agency. So we work with large global customers and brands. And, you know, we try and make sure that made brave that everyone knows where we're no artists here, we're designers where, you know, we are, we're helping solve business problems. So, you know, I think, ultimately, in my world, specifically, you know, you need to understand what is the problem you're solving? And, you know, who is the person in front of you? What are their motivations, what does success look like. And if you've, you need to get a very, very clear belief to know what it is you're doing. And then you've got way more chance of coming up with an idea that's going to work for it. And the living example of an idea and maybe how my brain works. So we work for chemical first bus, first group, so they did run all the buses in Scotland in the UK, and I think they hold the Greyhound in the US, etc. And they were launching new, eco friendly buses to Glasgow. And they said, Look, Could you could you let Glasgow North is eco buses are coming in the sense of, you know, moving towards sustainability, etc, etc. Now, you know, some people might have gone, you know, had various, you know, you know, on for eight sheets, or can have gone on social media, and I thought, you know, well, there's a couple of things we need to do. And remember that kind of branding from the inside out, you know, we need everyone in the company to want to help us share this message, so that it gets out to everyone in Glasgow, and we want to, you know, didn't have buckets of budget. So we want to do something that attracts people to, to rather than us having to painstakingly detail everyone. So I said, winter patch with them and said, Remember when you were a kid, and you got like a little hot wheels, bus or car toy, and I don't know, you're like me, but I used to line them up the same bed at night. And before I went to sleep and looking at these little cars and things, and I said, remember that feeling of how great it was, you know, sort of why don't we make a giant toy bus and put it in the middle of your squealing glass cool. So and brave client, you know, and they, you know, they said they bought into the idea. And they let us build like, if you imagine what will car and its packaging, but one to one scale. So a double decker bus in the middle of George Square just looked like it landed, been dropped by a giant. But what you know what that did was it did a few things. And I think this is you know, when you when you solve a creative problem, you're always trying to look at comm how many layers of success can we do here? So first of all, you've got that big thing in the middle of George Square, everyone wants to take pictures of it. So they are suddenly creating user generated content for you spitting out the bus drivers and the people that work in the day pool for the first time, we had something super proud to say that was theirs. Have you seen our bias? Have you seen that that was ours and the bus drivers had that? So suddenly, the bus drivers are pointing out, they're driving the bus these to show their customers, they're, you know, they've got something to be proud of. So they're going to work happier. They're giving customers a better experience more likely because, you know, the something to talk about. And yet the you know, the boss does its thing, and it's you know, and yeah, I think oh, yeah, sorry. And then we were able to show the behind the scenes of how do you build the world's biggest, you know, toy boss? How do you you know, so there's layers and layers and layers and layers. And I think, you know, what I've realized with my own strengths is that, that, well, I have strengths and have weaknesses. I always say, you know, I think we've all got superpowers and we've all got kryptonite. Yeah, thing back to sort of creative process, you know, we need to know what we're doing this for. But we also need to know where our strengths and weaknesses lie. So I'm a big believer of, you know, getting the right people together and to solve creative problems. And very much I encourage all of my team and Alden else asked that question in interviews of like, what's your what's your kryptonite? Because I think you've got to know your weakness. So you can surround yourself with people that have the polar opposite superpower to yours. And then, you know, then you get greatness because you know, iron sharpens iron. So you've got you know, around you, you've got the best of each part. And then you just need to put them together and hope for the best idea comes out so so I need you know, for me, I'm an ideas person I can visualize, I can see I can almost feel like I kind of see the gray, the gray between in between things, but I need people around me that can structure and people that can organize and it's not my forte, so am I very, very, very much on my weaknesses.
Roy Sharples:That's a very team based approach where you are self aware and clear about who you are, and what you are good at, and what you are not. And know how to bring in multidisciplinary skills and knowledge bases from multiple talented people to make up a high performing team work. And also inspiring and motivating people by having a living. A compelling vision that provides clarity, generates enthusiasm, and delivers success always. And being genuinely empathetic towards people's needs and feelings and helping them grow. Along with being transparent and honest, which solidifies trust and confidence in building and running creative teams. Also your source of inspiration around how you came up with the idea for the car concept, and relating it back to being in your bedroom. Lining cars up is fascinating how those things stick with you. And then they come out and peculiar ways.
Andrew Dobbie:My big gambling, lover of nostalgia in marketing and kind of anything that brings out the inner child, I think you were saying earlier on, and you know that we lose a lot of that creativity as we grew up. And I once saw a phrase on a sandwich board in London, and it said, don't grow up, it's a trap. And that one has stuck with me. So I've now got that up in our studio. And I use that all the time, they'll go off, it's a trap. And it's reminder to keep that or keep that childhood. Creativity, that fun, that kind of don't lose that. And, you know, people I think people get very serious about business sometimes. And I will say to our team, we're here more than we are home, this is life as well as work although not know when we're at home or in America. And but you know, you know, I kind of say that this is life. So when we look back on this journey, let's let's have had some fun along the way in do this, you know, we're literally this week, we always get these funny videos around Christmas time. So a couple of years ago, I'd like dressed up in a ghillie suit as a Christmas tree. And then we kind of had hidden cameras, surprised all the team when we came in. And yesterday, you know, when you're on Zoom calls, right? Yeah. And you meet someone for the first time out of zoom, and you're like, oh, wow, you're really tall, I thought you were much smaller, or vice versa. And so we're pretending the Midway, we hired a giant during lockdown, without realizing. So it's like a 40 foot giants. We film this film yesterday, it'll be out by I mean they are we don't just know, this is the eighth of the same bar, it will be out in a couple of days time. And so if you're listening to this, you'll be able you will go and hunt for it. And then we have pages but we're literally the pretending that we've hired 40 foot Jane and we've got all these scenes, like if you can imagine Jurassic Park and honey, I blew up the kids. And these are all these have all just come from? Wouldn't it be great to do that? Because it's all stuff from our childhood. And I think if you can mash modern day business with childhood memories, there's just something that seems to stick with human beings. I don't know what it is, or completely.
Roy Sharples:Absolutely. So what are the key skills needed to survive and thrive as a creative leader in running a successful creative agency? Andrew?
Andrew Dobbie:Yeah. Well, I personally, and I know this is not for everyone. But I personally feel if you're leading the business, you have to come up with the tools. And I know, that's not for everyone to listen, I'm always saying a one size fits all. But personally, I believe that you kind of need the headspace to not be in the jobs. So I think that's for most and you know, I would encourage anyone that isn't a creative business, if you're struggling to get past a few new team members, or you can scale beyond anything is that is to have a look at that. And someone said to me once, and it's stuck with me, for Engadget, actually. He said that, you know, if you're the CEO, or if you're the leader of the business, that your desk should be empty. And it sounds very egotistical. I don't mean it in that respect, what he was saying or was that, that you need to have an empty desk, because you know, there should be people around you that are better than everything. Now, obviously, in the first year, that's not going to it's not going to happen, because you're going to have to do a cone ship and have to do billing, you're going to have to do operations, marketing, about everything. But slowly but surely, right, all of those tasks down until we have them on somebody else's job description. So you know, for example, now I've got an operations director that kind of manages and runs the business, I leave the business. I've got finance teams, I've got brand and marketing teams, I've got, you know, the there's, it's taken a while to get there. But over time, eventually, I shouldn't have anything except your stuff should land on my desk and I go, That person over there is better than me than that. I'm going to give it to them to do and at that point, you have a business because other than that you own a job, you know. And if you ever you know as we all get a little bit older and a little bit more tired and you know if you ever don't want to be in the day to day all the time that you kind of almost need to be working to that and I think you What you also need to do is get out people's way can be cliche, saying, you know, but it's so true as that you need to hire better people get out of the way. Like, I very quickly give the reins of my creative to my creative director, he's actually got very similar accent to your voice from Aberdeen, I feel like a nice person talking to him, weirdly, and he's a very wise guy Stevens got would make a great guest on your podcast actually. And like Steven, you know, I gave, I handed the reins to Stephen and he now feels ownership. So it's his creative team. And so I'll get the best out of Stephen, you know, he feels fulfilled in that respect, and he gets to put his creative flair on it. And, and I play with the midbrain brand, that's where I get my creative joy. So I still, you know, I'll still do the ideation stuff for the made brave brand and like silly videos, etc. But also, I think, you know, as the as the culture that you set up in your business, so, so it's not always easy, you know, it's always changing, because there's, you know, you know, we were 60 people in our team now and changing, you know, changes daily. And, I mean, obviously, people leave businesses were bigger than, but I think it's the tone and the culture that you set within the team. So I'm a big believer in values driven business in terms of, you know, knowing your values and understand the team understanding them. And it's not to hit people over the head with them. I kind of think of values as behaviors that you'd like to see in your business, and also using them as a mechanism to repel and attract the right people to your business. So we tend to not look for culture fit certainly brave in terms of you know, you don't want everyone to be the same. We look for culture ads, so who's going to add to this culture, improve it make it better, and then we use those values. So for example, amigos without eagles, has one of our values. And it's all about that the best idea comes from anyone, no matter the size of their salary, or their experience, if it comes from the newest person in the door, or if that's the best idea that wins. And so using these values, they're kind of a catalyst of the culture you want to create. And I suppose that's the job of the leader is to keep keep that pendulum swinging in the right direction, and nudging the culture, but very much, so the culture will take its shape on its own itself as an organic thing. But you just keep having not keeping, haven't you, so you keep having to nurture it in a direction. And yeah, so I think also, other things that can have successful leaders tend to do having spoken to a lot of them on my podcast and things as well as, like, clear vision. And, you know, I think human beings, we need to know where we're going, we need to know who our partners that in that is. And I think that's where I've seen a lot of improvement in our business over the last couple of years that we should got to sooner is like, you know, personal development plans, and, you know, letting people know, how they improve and what there Part Two players and, you know, kind of made brave, we run the business around three OKRs. So objectives and key results, systems failure business, egolessness, very simple. And, you know, my job now is to kind of see, there's three things that we're trying to do as the businesses is that want to be globally renowned for creativity. So we want to be the best in the world, and work with the best, don't compete against them, collaborate with them, and work with the best of the best. And so that keeps, there's a real that stems down into everyone's departments, everyone's roles, how do we how do we make that happen, and then say, let's not be scared about money, and profitability is a good thing. And often creatives can be it's almost like it's a bad word, but it's, I've tried to encourage the devalue what we do, we need to, we need to be profitable, or we can give people wage increases or nice office, etc, etc. So let's, let's not be scared to talk about that. And then our third one is to be the best place in the world to work for. And those three, those three kind of markers, if you like, my job is to keep keep us aligned with all three, not like one of them get bigger than the other. But they help keep the company aligned to help them make decisions. And then what we say to everyone is, I want you to have the autonomy to make decisions. However, if you get it wrong, it's okay. You're a human being, I get stuff wrong. So we encourage like sort of ask for forgiveness, not for permission. So if Guess I'm wrong, just kind of see or go wrong. It's okay. But you know, don't don't come and ask to do stuff or just get on the thing. You know, we trust we trust you. So. So that's the kind of Holy Grail of what I'm trying to get. You know, don't get me wrong. It's, it's not always perfect. It's we're always looking to improve. And I think running a business through a pandemic certainly gives you a few more entrepreneurial stripes in your arm in terms of some of the challenges that have come up over the last couple of years. So and we're not perfect, but I think I think knowing that you aren't perfect no one is and but, you know, I think setting a vision of what you want to be all the time is a very powerful thing to do.
Roy Sharples:Yeah, setting the right tone. And curating the right culture is really critical. And I know that's an obvious thing to say, as an example, cultures are defined by the people who live and function within them. And the same demographic two cultures created simultaneously pursuing the same ideals will still become two very different entities. Why? Because people are different. And when people come together in the service of something greater, they retain their own unique personalities, passions, hopes, and dreams. And the shared experiences, and constant interactions between people make up a culture, and therefore culture is the engine that drives momentum, it is a sum of what you feel, believe and do that shapes and defines your works, input, and also the output, what your lessons learned, based on your experiences to date in terms of the pitfalls to avoid, and the keys to success that you can share with existing creative leaders, but also aspiring creative leaders in the creative agency world.
Andrew Dobbie:Focus, focus, focus. I think creatives, we're like magpies, we like shiny things. And when we see another shiny thing, we run over to it, and then we run over to another one, and then another one, and we keep going. And I think what I've learned from changing my style over the years, and anyone I've spoken to this seems to be successful. Obviously, that word is different for everyone. But yeah, but I think focus, I think, you know, the the creative business, you know, the narrower you can make your service offering is often better, because you get very good at one or two or three things. You know, I think in the early days, we did many things and, and then you know, the more success lots of opportunity comes to you as well, you know, when you when you start to find a voice and when you start to, you know, build a brand, etc. And I think you've just got to be wary not to take on too much. You know, I, you know, I've struggled with that in the past, just yes to everything. And then No, I say no to a lot more things, and try and pack the things where you can really put your effort into them. And, yeah, I think if you're, you're growing your own business that you need to connect, really make sure you've got your house in order and before he start going off to try and create other businesses. And yeah, I think there's something for the ego that makes you feel good. I'm I'm a multi entrepreneur, I think you get one good success as, as we're witness that. I think, what would I say in terms of other pitfalls? You know, again, just various earliest possible identify your weaknesses, and on repeating that, but it's very important, you know, if, if you're a creative and you're sitting listening to this, and you want to create a business, but you know, nothing, you're not strong with numbers or finances, can find someone that is, you know, and it doesn't have to be, you know, that there's many ways you can do things as well, again, kinda like the purple coat thing. When I was looking for a mentor, I went out and looked for people who'd run agencies, right? And I sat in front of them, and they went up my mentor, would you help and, you know, one of the most successful agencies in Scotland, I spoke to the founder. And as a coach, I'd love to be so inspired if you were my mentor, he said, Andrew, you've done in three years, what took me 10. He said, I can't teach you anything else yet. You know, you're you're, you've grown rapidly, etc. And it was a realization for me, when actually, I'm just going to let my creative God do what he's doing. Because it's something seems to be working. Right. So I'm not going to try and do what someone else did. I thought, well, I don't really know much about how business deals are done, acquisitions, you know, sort of raising money, all these things that you slowly but surely start to learn in business. And so I went and got an FD a financial financial director as my mentor. Yeah. So and the reason is great for both parties is that well, I learned about how business deals are done a huge level, you know, that deals that I'll probably never be involved in. But I learned I learned a lot about how that world works and negotiations and you know, and I'm able to give him something back because I can give creative ideas I can give creative inspiration that that has that you know, so I'm his superpower to his kryptonite. Yeah, and vice versa. And so you know, if you're looking for someone to learn from don't necessarily go after who you think is the obvious choice. Think about the purple co again, and think what would help me get on my journey in a different manner. Your point around focus, focus, focus. Yeah, effective prioritization and being laser focused and disciplined. execution are the keys to success. It is just as important to decide what you do not do, as it is what you do on what you do do. Make sure you do it because a lot of people spend too much time well, I've got an idea for a business, a bit of content I want to create or I'm too scared to put out. Just get out, you know, you need to, like so many times have made great stuff. It's like, of course, it's not perfect, but get it out. And you know, people don't look at things with the CMA as you're looking at them with, you know, you'll see flaws and everything you do. But just get it out and build a story that people can believe in, you know, and watch along to, you know, we're human beings. We love stories, we're reset, watching, you know, tonight we'll set watching Netflix or Amazon or you know, and everywhere we go, we asked how do you how are you? What have you been up to? We're asking for stories, stories, stories, stories. So make sure there's a story wrapped around your business, make sure there's something and a lot of gay businesses, the story is able to tell very succinctly as well. So people will say to me, or Andrew Dolby, the guy had 1000 pounds in the bank and a two week old baby, right. Yeah, and, you know, as a simple mechanism, but there's a memorable thing there. And I can't shake it. That's my story is my story. So it's like, so if you can get your story for anyone listening down to, you know, can you get it in a couple of sentences, like, sort of look at your code, you know, and you can pick when your story starts, right? Because just what happened, that's where mine starts, and I take it from there. But it could be, No, there wasn't a pandemic, I lost my job. This was tough. And this is why I did about it, right. And there's a start of a new story. But I think you need this story to make people pay attention to your business beyond it being a great business. I think all great. businesses tend to have that kind of narrative that you could have, you can watch along or, you know, read about. And I think it just adds a level of engagement. But you've got to have the good service offering that's got to be a given, there's got to be a good product or a good services, just this is a bit extra that will set you apart from from the norm and everyone else,
Roy Sharples:Provoke actions that change minds. Look left when everyone else is looking right. Reject the conventions constantly analyze and question and challenge the status quo in the everyday life and provide an alternative and bring it to life. Another theme that came through within your perspective there, Andrew, was the importance of storytelling. And stories are the oxygen for communication. Storytelling is a language that unites the world. It brings us together, it helps us understand our past and reach toward the future. And a well told story engages the mind, heart and soul. And a story without setback is probably not worth telling at all. It's obviously something you value by building your your own brand. And the brands for your clients through audience specific narratives and storytelling themes that spark awareness, build perception, generate demand and drive brand reputation.
Andrew Dobbie:I think the challenge also can come when companies get bigger is how I look, if you're not the phone, that was part of the story. But I think that's kind of a lot of what we do in our day to day is like we've come into companies and we're helping them facilitate what is the story here. And I think you know, bigger businesses or businesses of any size, you need to get people involved in that. So it's it can't be an autocratic thing is kind of, if you're again, it's back to branding from the inside out, you need you need everyone involved, you know, and to feel part of that bigger, bigger story, as well. So, yeah, there's, there's nested stories within stories. Yeah, and I think you're just trying to create as many positive ones as you can,
Roy Sharples:What's your vision for the future of creative agencies, and the role of creativity?
Andrew Dobbie:The world has been turned upside down. And I think, you know, the last couple of years, we've realized how valuable creativity is because creativity is what gets us over problems. So it's, you know, it's, it's how we, you know, we made changes in the world. And I think, you know, I think the world more Sordin than ever values creativity now, in terms of, you know, YouTube and, and I think it's quite interesting, where we're headed with blockchain and NF, T's, etc. I think that, you know, we're seeing a sort of revelation revolution in terms of, you know, I think for a while there, all the money went to the platforms to Facebook and Google and all these places, and, you know, let the creators maybe didn't see quite as much of it, and I think are about to see a bit of a change where the balance is going to come more to the creators, just with how NF T's work, and, you know, people when they sell their creativity they're able to get money, right the way through the chain of sale, you know, sales and sales again. So I think and I think we see this a lot on Zillow last less a lot in history, you know, the radio, and then TV and you know, you know, TV wins first, and then suddenly the celebrities start to win. You know, because they, they are the ones that are bringing the value. And I think we've just gone through that moment where they're almost like the platforms are kind of like the TV was, you know, in terms of, they had all the power and all the control, and I think is sweating a little bit with this change in technology.
Roy Sharples:So completely, it's all so yeah. So no, no, I'm saying that that that whole thing has been disrupted in democratize? You're absolutely right.
Andrew Dobbie:Exactly. So I don't know what that means quite yet. I'm still getting my head around, I'm doing a lot of reading at the moment and doing a lot of kind of buying NF T's I've been having kind of in the crypto world for the last six or seven years to sort of, because I can see how it's exploding and how, you know, everything's heading in that direction. And I think you've got to, especially as leader of the business, you got to understand where, where the world is moving. So, yeah, I think we're in for an exciting couple of years. So we see all all this starts to pan out. But yeah, I think creativity is highly valued. There's, there's a challenge in terms of, I suppose, you know, agencies, etc, you know, kids and stuff, we've got much we've talked about earlier, they've got much more opportunities to learn from an early age. So you get amazing, talented children coming out really early here with great talent, but I think that's an advantage. I think if you have the mindset of we're not trying to compete, is that we can collaborate. And, you know, select like you I have a podcast for creative people. It's called just a chat with a feeling like looker. And, you know, I do that a lot of that so I can learn from the best of the best, but also I can collaborate with the best of the best as well. So I think, you know, for anyone listening again, it's like, try not to feel like you're always competing, you know, with people trying to figure out what's authentic in your tummy what sort of makes you what's your unique selling point as you try and amplify that try and you know, collaborate and share and give knowledge Oh, and I think all of those things will help you to have a sort of more successful creative career and hopefully some fulfillment along the way as well.
Roy Sharples:Do you want to learn more about how to create without frontiers? Then consider getting Creativity Without
Frontiers:How to make the invisible visible by lighting the way into the future. You have been listening to the Unknown Origins Podcast. Please follow, subscribe and rate and review. For more information go to unknownorigins.com Thank you for listening.