The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E6 Mark's Diary - Betrayal, backstabbing and death

Episode Date: November 19, 2017

In this Chapter, I delve into another CEO's deep, dark diary. My first guest was Mark Stringer, CEO of Manchester based web & design agency, AHOY. Mark takes us through his tumultuous 2017 that resulted in him having to fold his business and saw him caught up in the London terror attacks..

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly, to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. I apologise. It's been two long weeks since I've uploaded this podcast and I usually upload every Sunday so I'm sorry for that but we're back to business as usual. Here is the good news. As I told you I wanted to invite other CEOs onto this podcast to share their deep dark diaries and secrets with you and in those two weeks I've met with two different CEOs and delved into their diaries. One of them is a 25 year old CEO of one of the UK's fastest growing companies, tremendous company with a tremendous team. And the other is a CEO of a small agency business here in Manchester who went through an experience that no one in business or life would wish on their worst enemy. And in today's chapter, we delve into his diary. He emailed me,

and he wanted to come on this podcast to share his experience, which involves backstabbing and betrayal. And through the agency Grapevine and people I knew, I already knew a little bit about his story. And from the little I knew, it was horrific. It involves the majority of his team backstabbing him, serious betrayal, mental health issues, total desperation and a business that ends up having to fold because of it. There is so much to learn from the story and it's incredibly interesting. And just when you think things can't get any worse, this young man gets caught up in a terrorist attack in London which changes the perception of his life and perspective of his life forever. The man in question is called Mark Stringer and he is the CEO of Ahoy which is a Manchester-based web and graphic design agency. Mark is an avid listener

of this podcast so he knows the score already. This is not a PR interview and he agreed to share the full details with total honesty. I also told Mark that if he wasn't raw, honest and open, I would not share it with the world. Mark agreed and that's exactly what he did. So without further ado, let's open Mark's diary. This is chapter six. I'm Steve Bartlett and this is the diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Okay, so Mark, thank you for joining me. I really, really appreciate it. You are our first ever guest on this particular podcast.

And I wasn't sure at first if it made sense for the format of this, it being a diary and all, to have a guest on. But considering your story and considering our previous conversations over the last couple of months, I knew that you also shared a lot of the hardships and the pains and the challenges and the unpredictable events that I shared as a CEO. And we had a conversation, I'm not sure if you'll remember, but in my office a couple of months ago where we talked about some of the real hard moments that only people that run service businesses where there's such unpredictability will really be able to understand. And so I know you'd listened to this podcast. And when you got in touch, at first I read the email and I thought,

no, I'm not really going to do guests. But I closed the email and then reopened it because I remembered our conversations. And then I went over to my team and said, listen, I think this would be a great first guest on the podcast. So thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. I can't thank you enough.

Yeah, I've been binge listening to the podcasts and it was just the honesty and the intimacy of what you were doing. And it was interesting to see just somebody um so successful being so honest about about what was actually going on so yeah I'd been binge listening and then when you mentioned that you'd wanted to have someone on and um you know they couldn't come on I thought right well I'm happy to be honest I can I can sort of take your lead and I can do that so yeah and as I say these these two major things happened to me this year um which which are now part of my story so I thought it'd be a really good chance to to come and share it amazing so the thing with this

podcast as you'll know because we had a little bit of a chat before is it's all about that honesty and it's not about pr or um all the other interviews you've probably ever done in your life where it where there was an emote sort of a an agenda there right and same for me it's winning business it's talking about business or selling ourselves and this is that has always acted as the opposite of that this is antithesis of brand building this is honesty and um if this interview doesn't get to that place, then it will almost never be heard because it won't fit the format of what this is.

So that's the single most important thing today. Just as bad, we're not in your cupboard, are we? At your house on this one. Yeah, so this is the first time I've not shot at home after 2am in my little washing cupboard under the stairs I'm at the office in one of our studios that's being renovated

it is Although quite like the idea of just me and you sat in our pyjamas just scratching our ass talking, putting the world to rights about how tough it is running a business that would have been good It's been interesting but also very suspicious. True, very true.

It's 10pm, it's Wednesday, I believe. And without further ado, I'll get into it. So I guess the first, what I said to you is, you know, there's three types of listener that I've uncovered by doing this podcast. There's somebody who's potentially thinking about getting into business at some point. Maybe they have no interest,

but they currently don't run a business. the second person is somebody that's just starting out and that's encountering those initial hurdles and obstacles and trying to gain some sort of inspiration or motivation about how you maybe get through that and get to the point which is where the third group of people are at where they're running a business, they've got teams, and they're encountering those kinds of challenges. So where I wanted to start is before. So what was your story before you started your business? What were you doing? Have you always been an entrepreneur? Yeah, I think, I suppose I got into my business because of a talent.

So I was really good at drawing. And I'd been given this idea at school, put it for my art GCSE a year early because it was good. And then they would sort of decide what they was going to do with me in the final year. And they said, what about graphic design? And I was like, what's that? I don't know what that is. And I started to learn what it was and I just

fell totally in love with it so straight after school did a an ND HND degree and then yeah I went to work for a few different agencies and I started to pick up how they were run and started to learn how to manage people that type of thing went and run another agency which i set up uh with another another chap uh called dan dan clark lovely guy um but after a few years we could start to see that i was becoming really ambitious and he just wanted to to work a certain way um And he went away on holiday. And when he came back, he said, look, I really want to push on. I want to advertise.

I want to take on staff. I want to work long hours. And it was just a real mismatch there. So we had a chat. And yeah, I just left him with that business. All the SEO we'd done, everything I'd put into the business, I left him with that. Came away. He carried on with that. And then I went working from home and I was just working downstairs from my cellar and just started to slowly build up clients. I had clients knocking on

the door, coming around, trying to straighten up the house and things like that and um yeah just started to start to build it from there and so what point did your business transition from being a business in your basement to um taking on staff and having an office and those kinds of things i think that the big move was uh moving into office space so we moved into a a place in Heaton Chapel in Stockport and we had moved in with another developer, Chapcourt Kieran, and we started to become really busy. He'd already been doing

bits of development work for me, I was doing all the design and it just motored on. We took on a designer, we took on another developer, we got to the point where I was thinking, shit, I'm doing a lot of project management here, I don't want to be doing that. So we took on a designer we took on another developer we got to the point where i was thinking shit i'm doing a lot of project management here don't be doing that so we took on a project manager and we we just slowly built the team from there and whenever there was a need we took it on and as we got busier we just just grew it and i always had it at the back of my mind that i that i wanted to have an agency that i could be proud of, the agencies that I read about in

the magazines. And I had that image in my head that I wanted to develop something that was not only something that was money-making, but something that I could be proud of. It had some kind of kudos. And it was trying to go for a certain aesthetic with what we were doing with the design, that type of thing. So I always had that in my mind and it was trying to go for a certain aesthetic with what we were doing with the design, that type of thing. So he always had that in mind and it just grew and grew from there. And so how did you go, what's the feeling of going from, obviously I have my own answer to this, but what was the difference between being a freelancer in your basement

and employing people because i think i think the big one for us was when we we went from um a quarter million turnover to half a million turnover and that was a that was a big one i remember sitting down with the accountants and they were saying you know you, what you've done is pretty impressive. And at that point, you start to think there's something of value here. This is not just me trying to develop something that's feeding the need in me to have a certain agency. There's all of a sudden a commercial drive that this has value now. I can build something that will have worth further down the line. And you start to think then about longer-term goals,

not just the next project. You start to think about the type of people you bring into the business. Are they going to be good for the next four or five years? You start to think in terms of longer-term goals. And that was the real switch moment for me. You have the whole thing, and I'm sure you've been through this in terms of like you have a client win

and all of a sudden it's a bigger accolade. And then you have that other one and it spins on from that and all of a sudden you think, this is it, we're off. We're off the ground. You have those few bumps of the play and all of a sudden you're like, right, we're off, we're off the ground. You have those few bumps of the plane and all of a sudden you're like, right, we're on it.

And then all the little things crop up, little problems. Talk to me about those problems. And also at this point, did you have a wife and kids? Yeah. So did you start when you had a wife and kids? Yeah, well, it was interesting. I was wondering if he was going to mention this because obviously you've been speaking in your podcast about relationships,

which was quite touching, really. I thought that was overly honest of you. I thought it was really interesting. And you saying about you was unsure whether you wanted to be in a relationship or not, and how you felt after it. I've been in a relationship since I was 16. So I met my wife Katie when she was 15. We met at school.

And having that type of relationship from a young age is quite tough. When we have, broke off. Usually because I think we broke off once when I was about 23, 24. I had that kind of quarter-life crisis. Sure, yeah, yeah. Kind of when I was thinking, you know, I've been with the same person for that amount of time. The grass is greener maybe. Yeah, or just not knowing that I'm going to experience ever being single or meeting other people.

So we had a bit of a break go back together um and then uh yeah so i'd had my first child at 25 right mark um and then we had mia um about 18 months later um it was a conscious decision to try and keep that right close together so like if you're in nappies mode like kind of get out of the way so yeah we've so we've got we've got two kids so when i started that when when when i started the business we we had um yeah we had a little kid running about and when you're when you're operating as a freelancer, it's fairly riskless, let's say fairly risk-free.

Yeah. When you start employing people, um, the bigger it gets, the harder it falls. I think that is the old adage. And, um,

you have things coming around like, you know, payday and you have greater responsibility. You have to now make money because, you know, you have to pay your staff bills, even if your clients don't pay you and things just get a little bit more you know nervous i guess um and higher pressure

massively i think you've understated that i think yeah yes so i'm just talking about at the start though i know how i start i know it gets to a more even more serious so so typically it's if you're a freelancer you've got is a small mouth to feed in terms of um you know you've got operations uh sales and um finance and then you've got as your business gets bigger there's the whole culture culture side of it and when you're smaller you can focus very much on on operations and kind of get through your projects and as you build a little team, that mouth to feed is not as big. So there's stress, but it's not the stress that we know as the team gets bigger. And you have to really learn to handle that stress. At the very start, what were the hardest things of going from just yourself to, say, a team of five?

What were the hardest challenges of getting from that point to that point? Or was that fairly straightforward for you? I think that sort of growth bit is quite easy. Five to ten yeah i think from five to ten then all of a sudden you start to to get into waters where you know you've got a target that you've got to hit every month yeah so that's that's the moment where it's come up to payday and you're thinking where we could get this money from. You're feeling physically sick. And did you feel that way?

Yeah, massively, massively. Talk to me about the detail of those moments and specific examples of where you knew it was payday. You knew that as things are, you didn't have enough money in the bank account. Well, I'll tell you what we did one day we had a run into the wages and it was like last minute whether we'd get paid whether we'd get that money in the bank we got paid, got the money in the bank

and we paid everyone and typically a pay day sometimes you have a few grumbles I thought I was going to get paid in the morning and they get paid in the afternoon and they don't realise what you're going through and we'd paid that money out, we'd not been taking money out ourselves

and I went to the shop to go and get something to eat for myself and I had no money in the bank so I just paid all the wages and I didn't have any change on me or anything and I went to go to the shop to get something to eat and I couldn't buy any lunch Did anybody realise realize did any of your team realize so how many

people did you have at that point um we probably we probably had about 12 at that point so you've just paid 12 people um and then you realize that you have zero like zero you're not enough for lunch yourself does anybody in your team realize that no and how do you how would you go home like how does it feel to like go home the night before knowing that in the morning people were expecting to be paid and you didn't know how that was going to happen um what's that feeling like what's the feeling like i can give it from my own experiences yeah we've been you know we've've been there at the very start. But I want to hear it. This is why I'm asking the question.

You have the sleepless nights where you just can't get to sleep. People don't realise that it is always there. You just zone out when you're talking to family members because you're thinking about next Tuesday. You should be relaxing over the weekend and spending time with family. And you're thinking about Tuesday coming up. What am I going to do on the Monday? Is there anything I can do Sunday night?

You're thinking what you can do in order to make sure that that money comes in. That client promised to pay me. You start to build up. I think you've mentioned this. You just zone out. You're not typically a good company. Then you've got the nights running up to it where you're in bed and you can't sleep.

You're staring at the ceiling thinking, how am I going to make sure that this money's paid? It's looking a bit iffy here. And did you ever have to let people you really cared about in the business go because of that? Because you realised that you need to scale back a little bit? We've had periods in the business where I've held out too long. So stupidly not wanting to let people go at Christmas time.

And held out. And personally suffered because of that. Not making a quick enough decision in terms of saying. In the early days, I think one of the pinch points in terms of running the business is that you make loads of mistakes. Some are more costly than others. And in the the early days we had pretty poor financial control um you know now we've got you know and a lot of people are starting out now we'll have zero uh it's all live data it comes in from your bank feed and it's all very very current you're getting your profit and loss within a week of your month end but then we were sitting down and having meetings with our accountant

every three months right um it was really slow getting that information even slower than that at the start so you've not got that really relevant information in terms of how you're doing in in the business um and you're making decisions totally blind and we've got to a point where we've grown the business to a certain size and really looking at where we were in the sales which we shouldn't have been we were sort of hiring ahead of the curve sure yeah and we we did exactly the same thing and for the first year we made a loss because we um we scaled very very fast invested all our capital but we also really had no idea how much money we were really making yeah i think that's the thing is you see okay client's gonna pay me

20 grand or whatever okay that means i get 20 grand when you do the math yeah you know you're spending 13 you're spending three months executing the work whatever which in the including the wages the lights the food the travel you're actually spending like 14 grand, let's say, to complete the work. Because it's taken you three months, you've also got tax, VAT, all these other things. And then you're like, fuck, I actually made nothing because it also took me one month to win the business

and go to London. So like, fuck, we actually only made 100 quid there, gross profit. And it's all very deceptive. The lights are off, as I used to refer to it. You know, you're making decisions in the dark. And it's the single most, I think I said it on the podcast, the single most important thing for me in reflection

and for all business owners that are thinking of hiring people and adding responsibility to their plate is don't, like, make sure you've got the number, you understand the numbers or you have or even better you have someone like an accountant a cfo that can educate you so you as an entrepreneur can just focus on the stuff you're good at because i'm shit with numbers like yeah i'm dyslexic so i i struggle a lot with things like that um i'm i know what i'm

doing obviously but but i can sometimes struggle to take in that information. It's like podcasts are taking while I absorb that information. Sometimes when I'm reading stuff, I have to read things time and time again. It's really frustrating. But another piece of advice I'd say to young people managing businesses in the early days is if the profit and loss, if it doesn't make sense to you in terms of how the accounts are shown to you, question it. Ask for it to be done in a different way. In terms of how our cost of sales are done in our profit and loss,

I always question the accountant. I want it done one way and he wants it done the other. So always feel that you're happy to question it. There's no orthodox way of doing it. There's little hints and tips, but actually challenge it and go through it. And as your business gets bigger, there's more transactions, you've got to be even more on it in terms of making sure you know what's this thing we're paying for every month why have we got that let's get it out of there and that can be quite tough

sure to be especially if things are going well and your turnover's high you can be less scrupulous in terms of going through yeah about the pennies yeah I said that to someone the other day. We have a consultant we hired, and we pay him a nominal fee compared to the revenues we generate. And his rebuttal to me when I cancelled his contract was, I know you're doing, say, seven figures a month, whatever. This is nothing compared to the revenues you're making. Why are you cancelling this contract?

And I said in a previous email to him when I cancelled making? Why are you cancelling this contract? And I'd said in a previous email to him when I cancelled his contract that, you know, we're a young business, we have 160 people, et cetera, et cetera. And he rebuttaled me on the 160 people. And my point to him was, now that we have a greater headcount, in fact, I have more responsibility,

this whole thing can fall ten times harder so I should be more concerned about every single penny than I was when there was only five because my responsibility is now greater than ever so it was a great point he mentioned my headcount because it's actually the reason why I'm now more I care more about the pennies

going back to one of your points a second ago on relationships how has those tough times and those hard nights, those sleepless nights, the stress of it all, how has that undoubtedly, um, impacted your relationships with,

with your partner? Because you, you've got to take it home with you. As you said, you know, I've spoken to a few entrepreneurs now and there's a consistent theme of them being in the room, but being a million miles away. Yeah.

And how is that for her to understand? Well, i'll tell you what's changed a lot is that katie works in the business now she's the she's the finance director okay before she worked in the business she didn't understand where i was coming from as much as i sat down and explained even you know over a glass of wine or if you're away camping, you talk a little bit more. Not just arguments. Yeah, not just arguments. When you really talk, because there are moments when you really talk, there's moments when you just kind of grow through emotions a little bit, as all relationships do. When you're really talking, you still can't get across what it's like.

And there's been moments now where she's running the finance in the across what it's like and there's been moments now where you know she's running the finance in the business and it's particularly tough and it's a really really tough tough job especially when she's had no training in it and she's kind of learned all the job but she now really understands where i'm coming from and i get asked a lot you know working with your wife seeing every day and my response is you know if you look to times of war you know talk to you know family members and they couldn't see the loved ones for a long amount of time I think it's great to be able to spend that amount of time together if you don't get on you probably shouldn't shouldn't be together I think it helps that I do a very different role so I'm very sales

orientated and ops orientated whereas Kate's you know credit control and finance and that side of things so it helps that there's a bit of difference there and also Kate really still wants to do the mum thing so she'll go and pick the kids up so Kate will typically start in the morning and then finish around sort of half two three and go and pick the kids up and then do then work from home and then work from there. So you said before she was involved in the business, she didn't really understand what it was like. So just to loop back then to try and get more of a fully appreciative answer to that question, what is it like?

If you had to summarise in a couple of sentences what it's like being a CEO of a company with staff and teams and uncertainty what is it like for someone that's listening right that's only ever watched the social network movie and seen Dragon's Den and has this sort of like very naive perception of what being a CEO or an entrepreneur

is like and thinks it's all glitz glam and jet skis what is it like it's it's what the public sees so they can see and understand you've got a dream you've got talent you want to create something

you're moving forward to get something that you want to attain and that's all the fluffy stuff that's the good stuff it's the powering forward to do it the dark side is that there's a long drawn out um kind of pumping out rejection of like cortisol let's just constantly running through your body and you slowly learn to manage it and you have moments

certainly at the start of the business where you're having panic attacks you know you're driving the car and just freak out you're free your hands are stuck around the wheel you've you've you know we're kind of moving on to kind of mental health a little bit here but you you it it causes you to suffer in certain ways so you know panic attacks i don't know didn't know you know what a panic attack was you don't know what it is when you first experience it and you don't tell anyone about it at the start, you just kind of absorb it and then

you'll then have certain circumstances like my dad suffered with panic attacks and the first time he had a panic attack was when he was in the bath so every time he gets in the bath it comes back um so i think that that people i was often uh i went to i went to an event and someone compared it to beauty and barbed wire right so you've got all that that kind of glamorous glitzy stuff

and then you've got the thing that things that you have to be resilient to underneath so you have to constantly take the knocks and people don't often talk about the knocks whether it's a legal battle you're having with a client whether it's an issue you're having with a staff member whether you are really beating yourself up over something you've lost or a decision you've made or whatever it is. There's great uncertainty, right? And I mean uncertainty long term, but I also mean uncertainty when you wake up in the morning. Yeah. One of the things that I've, you know, I learned was that, you know, I can plan my day as much as I want.

Yeah. I can plan my week as much as I want. Yeah. I can plan the month as much as I want. But I'm going to wake up one day this week and there's going to be some unexpected message which I'll get and it'll start with

just so you know and it'll be from one of the team telling me something that's happened or it'll be an email saying Do you have that thing where you can your brain, your skin read it, you don't read it almost, your brain just picks up a pattern or's almost you don't read it almost your brain just

picks up a pattern or something yeah and you know it's a bad email like just from that first so you get a preview yeah

I get a preview pop up whether it's a notification or if it's whatsapp you can see the start of the sentence yeah or the subject of the email and I'll know

because you know you've done this for three years you've probably received millions of messages in some form and I'll know how you know you've done this for three years you've probably received millions of messages in some form and I'll know how the bad ones start yeah

and I know the little notification preview and so I you know I used to get a point where I'd pop up and I'd get that feeling in my chest

of like it's like almost like this nervous anxiousness of the minute I see that notification because I'm like oh no

is that another one of those that's happened and I don't know if you have these things where where I'm at now is that, so the nerves kick in and you get really hit up and then this other thing kicks in, which I don't know whether... That's the resilience, right? That's the resilience where you think, I've got this. Yeah, right. I've got this.

And you kind of put yourself back down. And is that something that entrepreneurs and bosses have and they've got this. And you kind of put yourself back down. And is that something that entrepreneurs and bosses have and they've got that element and that's what they're able to sort of handle it? No, that's definitely, in my opinion, that's definitely a learned thing because the first time those things happen, there's not that thing that kicks in necessarily

and in such a composed way. It's almost like um you know i've said i don't know if i said this on the podcast but being an entrepreneur has made me much much harder but also so much more compassionate it's made me like be able to be a really nice person but also it's turned me into this kind of like cold um resilient rock of a hard piece of coal um and i'm able to move to both places so I can be lovely, lovely, lovely when talking to new members of the teams you know, like get on my

scooch down next to their desk and just talk to them about whatever and try and be really friendly and welcoming and then when I get those messages I'm able to default to my place of cold hard rock that's been through a lot of shit and knows that this is another piece of shit to deal with yeah

and is that old cliche of you know, you know, it's bad news, just put the next step forward and have your brain open to the next piece of good news that's going to come. You've got to push yourself into that. Hindsight becomes this wonderful thing you mustn't forget where in a moment I can remember the first time i thought i was myself and the business were fucked i can remember that very clearly i can remember how i felt and then i can also remember getting past it because i'm here

and then i can remember the second time i thought i was fucked and the business was over and we were done and i can remember you know that that feeling and then i remember getting past it yeah and you do that five times and there's really no news you can break to me now where you're going to be able to convince me that any every there's anything to worry about i've been you know we've been through it all i remember people saying to me at one point you know because our business started on twitter when twitter dies your business starts twitter virtually died yeah amongst my generation in terms of engagement we're fine people said things about this channel and we surpassed that too so when they said to me now i know it's not the case because i know that we get through those tough times with a certain self-belief

resilience and looking forward not dwelling and i said to one of my members of my team um about a year ago i said there's two different types of people there's there's one type of person where they're in a room and it's on fire and they'll turn to you and say the room is on fire right and they'll just keep saying the room is fire and they'll turn to you and say, the room is on fire. Right. And they'll just keep saying the room is on fire. They'll keep repeating it. And then there's the resilient sort of entrepreneur type that will see the rooms on fire, not tell the other person, not mention the fact that there's a fire and just focus solely on how we get out of this fucking room.

And that's the difference. That's how I identify a leader from someone who isn't cut out to be a leader. And I used to say to somebody that used to work for me, you need to stop mentioning the fire. And you need to stop focusing on the fire. And so he kept coming back to me every month and saying, Steve, I'm not looking at the fire. I'm not focusing on the fire.

I'm just focusing on how we get out. So it's now a reference point. But for all these things, all the hardships, all the pain and uncertainty and the anxiety and the panic attacks why then why be an entrepreneur what's it because it doesn't sound from what you've said like it's worth it why not live a comfortable super comfortable life which is you know give that problem the anxiety the stress to another guy or girl yeah why why why be the entrepreneur oh god it's tough that um because i'm wouldn't like easier yeah and you must have asked yourself that question i've asked myself that question a few times and you have those moments when you're down you think this would be easier if i just went and

got a great director role somewhere or you know was. But I think it's creating something. It just feels like it's a more rounded challenge. So if I go and be the best creative director I can be or the best designer that I can be or whatever that is versus doing it all off my own back and creating something and having something, some kind of legacy,

whether my kids come in and manage the business or whether we sell it and we do amazingly well or whatever happens with the business, it just feels like a more visceral project maybe it's because the risk maybe that's the whole entrepreneur thing you think you're a bit addicted to it addicted do you think you're a little bit addicted to the the

the fluctuation that how much it makes you feel I'm the same as you know think a lot of people is that I seem to kick into an extra gear when my back's to the wall I seem to perform better when I'm under a certain amount of stress I'm addicted to it I feel like I absolutely

hate pitching but I'll speak to another agency owner about this, and you get addicted to the pitch, pitching and winning. But it just doesn't make any business sense at all. If you can run your agency without pitching, you would be so much more profitable. But it's part and parcel of agency life and growing and winning new customers.

Maybe, yeah, if I'm speaking honestly, maybe I'm a little bit addicted to to the because i think i'm a little bit addicted to the feet almost i feel i feel like it's a developed addiction where the days that i feel most fulfilled are the days that um at the end of the day at the end of a tough day when i've when things have been resolved and i've gone home and got into bed and i'm just relaxing i feel like I'm almost addicted to the relaxation after solving some tough problems yeah in a way you know the days where everything goes swimmingly and I get in bed are quite boring to me now yeah um and it's as you're saying you're right it's kind of perverse what what I wanted to to get to then is so you're now running this business there's there's 10

people there's the tough times that you know being you know feeling sick physically sick and when i think when i when when people hear you say that they think okay that's an expression but it's actually feeling genuinely genuinely the blood has gone from your face you've you are physically stopping yourself from being sick in the toilet. That is how tough things get. How many times did that happen? It's definitely happened. All the time? No, it's happened on three occasions. Okay.

Two of those occasions were when it was close to the bone in terms of payday. And when the business had failed once I started the business in 2008 it was the start of a recession it wasn't a good time to restart a business really so yeah

one time was when we I thought oh shit this is it we're not going to be able to pay wages and the other time was when the business had gone down the pan a little bit and i had to let some people go um and the other time was when i read through some information on something that happened in the business very recently when when some staff had left and it was all very underhand and i remember reading through some messages that weren't meant for me and it was all very underhand and i remember reading through some messages that weren't meant for me and it was all behind my back and i went a person who was with me said you are right you

you are totally white the blood had just totally drained from me and i could i went to the toilet and i was was sick right i wasn't nearly sick, I was absolutely sick. So I want to get into those two significant life events that you have, which you referenced at the start of this podcast. Yeah. The first one, from what I understand, is the terrorist attack. That was the second one. It was the more frightening one.

And so that one came after? That was after, yeah. Okay. So touching then on that thing you touched on there about being sick because you discovered messages. Tell me that story. From what I understand, a significant proportion of your team and your senior leadership team left abruptly and out of the blue

and kind of left you in the lurch unannounced and took some of your key contacts, let's say, with them? What happened was at the end of March, we'd just paid wages, we'd just paid bonuses, things were going well in the business. It was a Friday, just finished a game of pool. We talked with two of the other managers. And one of them said, the other managers come in, just wants to have a quick chat with you. So I said, okay, no problem.

I've got friends sort of around for tea tonight. So I can hang on, but I can't wait too long we went into the went into the to the meeting room the other two managers walked in uh behind the other one and said uh we actually all want to talk to you um one of those people had worked I'd known for 15 years worked for me for five the other two worked for me around around the same time uh and they sat down and said, we're leaving, we're taking three staff, and we're setting up a competing agency. And I just had this out-of-body experience where I was thinking, this is actually happening to me now.

What they've just said is real. this is really really happening it's really happening now this is gonna could destroy me could totally change my life just it went from this is a joke to this is really happening and i remember just being stuck there and frozen and then all of a sudden thinking, right, I need to start asking some relevant questions. I need to try and work out what it is, what questions can I ask to get some kind of advantage out of it. And in that moment,

so how do you feel? How do you react? Because I imagine you felt an array of things, right? Yeah, I mean, shock, fear, and then anger. So they got to a point where they turned and said, you know, I'd ask some questions, do clients know? Have you spoke to the staff about this? No, we know our legal obligations.

So I'm thinking, oh, right, we spoke to a solicitor earlier, like they're really ahead of the game on this than me. And he said, you know, we want this to be amicable. And I was like, amicable? What do you mean, you know, amicable? How can this be amicable? You're giving me no notice, need to get out of the room, because if I'm going to do something stupid, I started to think, they could be recording this.

They've all of a sudden had time to think about it. It kind of dawned on me, they've had time to think about this, and I'm just getting told this now. So your brain's trying to catch up and think, right, just get out of the room, pull yourself together, and then look at what you're going to do. So I went out of the room, I was pacing up and down,

just fuming, you know, thinking, you know, what do I do? What's my next move? So I just, I went back in, I said, look, I can't speak to you now. I'm going to totally lose it. I'm worried about what I'm going to do.

I'm fuming. I spoke to Jason, who's my cousin, who works for us as well. He's an account manager. I told him what had happened because I'd slammed the door when I walked out. And he was just in shock. He's like, what? So I said, yes, this has happened. I said, make sure you get the keys and the laptops.

I'm just going to go home, pull myself together, and then I'll speak to you. I went home. I was just, you know, again, being fully honest. I'd love to say I wasn't, but I was really upset. I was in tears. I spoke to Katie about it, and she just couldn't. It just didn't compute.

How was her reaction? Just shock. Just like I'd gone home and told her that, you know, I'd got something that was, you know, some kind of disease. It was just total shock. It was, she just didn't know. She just, she was like, no, why? No, they wouldn't.

You know, why would they do that? They wouldn't do that to you. And you've known one of them for 15 years? Yeah, I've known one for 15 years. Has that made you not trust people in the same way? I think... It's like... I suppose it's like

being hurt in love I mean what you do just all of a sudden have a cold heart and never trust anybody again I think I'm a bit more cautious about about how much I tell people about the business and how much maybe I give

but in terms of trusting people and throwing myself into it, I've got to do that. I mean, running an agency, it's a person-led business. You've got to have really close relationships with people. And I know they all say, you know, you shouldn't have friends in business and all the rest of it, but you spend a lot of time together, especially in agency life, and you're doing more hours than you should be doing.

And I thought there was, and maybe I've read this wrong, I thought there was love there, I thought there was a good friendship, we'd gone to events together, gone to festivals and spent a lot of time together at work and things like that. Always done everything I possibly could, whether it was people being paid early or helping stuff out in the personal life or one of them got injured

and picked him up every single day while he had a bad leg from quite far out. So you just try and do everything you can. There was profit share put forward you talk about you know their career you know what so you do as much you give and do as much as you possibly can but I think the truth is I think the real truth is that however much you try and do, they still see you as a boss. And however much you try to change that, there's either that realisation that, you know, you should be stupid, you are a boss, you've got to live up to that, or you try and change that. And I think I was trying

to change that. I didn't want to be, I could see elements of the fact that I didn't want to be I could see I could see elements of of the fact that I was boss like um and I wanted to kind of undo it um going back to that day then yeah so the day you know you go home you tell your wife what's happened you've had your key people leave and they've taken some other some of the other team with them how do do you, what happened then from that point? It was even more, just to let you know how sort of complicated it was, how sort of ingrained we were with each other outside of work, not only inside of work. One of the manager's future best men

was around at my house. I was going to meet him and his wife and to have a drink that evening, have a bite and then um you know I got in and I thought right well I won't sort of you know try and drop this on them but I did so they you know they couldn't they couldn't understand they couldn't believe it and all the rest of it and then the the big shock was on the I was upset um I had a couple of people come around on the Saturday and try and help me out and understand what was going on I had a competitor a friend of mine nearly came around and made me count and come around on the Saturday never been to my house before so it was a big big

deal all of a sudden you've got these these people that you've kind of kind of always seen as just your business buddies to a certain degree all of a a sudden they're rounding you out. So that's quite a big message. And then on the Sunday, we went to the studio and started to look for evidence of wrongdoing. And I'd spoke to my solicitor and he was kind of saying, you know, look for X, Y and Z and these are the things you can look at. The first smoking gun was that we'd seen an intellectual property release form, which should have been signed by me,

and I wasn't aware of it for one of our clients. So that was the first thing to think, oh, God, right, okay, they're really at it here. What does that mean for you? Maybe that doesn't know. So when we create something or design something for a customer, we own the IP to it. It's kind of, it resides with us

and we have to release that to a customer. So customers sometimes ask for it, but we very rarely release it. Typically, we're a pretty good agency. We say, you know, once it's paid for in full, we release it, but some customers will also ask for it. It's quite unusual, though. So to see it signed on the date that they left by one of the people that left

was really worrying. We then found another one for another brand, another client. Then we got onto one of the computers, and we'd seen that there was a we transfer thank you message saying thank you for transferring your transferring your files from here to this new email address and this new email address was this new agency that they'd set up and i was kind of expected it but was just feeling lower and lower and then we got onto one of the machines and one of the managers had left a huge amount of evidence on there in terms of messages and when we started to read through that, that's when the shock of how long it had been planned

over, what they'd been doing, what they'd been saying. How long had it been? Three months. So it had been planned over three months. So going through the details of that was just the betrayal. Just the betrayal. It was tough to read. And I knew I needed to read through it to get the evidence together to protect

the business. And had they said things about you personally? Yeah. Things that I imagine weren't very nice. Yeah, it was kind of laughing and joking about how people I knew in Manchester and other business owners would find out

about it and it was kind of laughing around what they thought would be my demise. It was laughing around the fact that, you know, how the other staff would feel. Those aren't friends, though, are they? These aren't people that are friends. These people, if someone's laughing at your demise

that's somebody that doesn't like you like they don't want the best for you and how does it get to the point where someone that's been with you for five years or known you 15 years is laughing at your demise i don't understand that like that's that's so tough because you know obviously i've got people here who i've known for five years and those people are like, they're my brothers. Like we're, so the thought of, what would have to have happened for them to get to a point where they laughed at me? I think from what I can see on the messages,

it's gone from, we're going to do this, to we'll approach another staff member. We'll spend a bit of time working on our strategy, we'll start working on our branding, we'll start working on our logo, we've approached these staff, this person's on board, that person's on board, we'll work on the website. So in ahoy time, they're working on their new agency website. And there was 27 pieces of evidence,

including there was six contracts with six full-time staff. And so reading through that, it's almost like you feel stupid because you think, I thought there was a genuine relationship there and it was just all facade. So you feel dumped. You feel really, really dumped.

How could you have misread that in terms of, in hindsight, what have you learned about the warning signs or um it's a really really good question and this is something that's kind of haunted me a little bit in terms of like were their little clues i remember sort of noticing that one of the managers was just a little bit off and i said to him you're all right? Is everything okay? Do you want to have a chat? And just kind of thinking he's having a bit of a bad time in his own life. Just a bit worried.

Or that he was worried about something at work. And he would just always dismiss it. And the staff were always really open to coming and having a chat with me and I've had staff that have been through really tough personal health issues and things like that so I've always had an open door I've always said that you can talk to me any minute

no matter how busy I am, pull me aside and for them to for him to just kind of dismiss it a little bit in retrospect now I feel there was a sign there. But your perception of the situation was so far from what was actually going on. And that, as a CEO, I'm trying to figure out how that's the case.

It was well... how that's the case. It was well choreographed. I mean, they had this thing of working with a black screen, with black text, if they were doing anything. And again, in retrospect, I think I nearly, I remember them sort of switching something off. But you have staff like that. They might have been, I don't know, you know, looking at something they shouldn't have been looking at. You know, social media or whatever.

So there was elements of that. But they would work a way that if I was coming in and they were in the meeting room talking about their new venture, that one of the other ones would guide me away and distract me and talk to me about something else. If Mark's supposed to be coming at such and such a time, take him over to the pool table and distract him because we're in there talking about such and such a thing. So at that level, yeah, speaking honestly, Steve, you do feel stupid. Like, how have I missed that? And you start to think, other people looking in on this are going to think,

no, something was going on there. How did he miss that? But all the other staff were in total shock. Nobody knew anything. Well, the way that I've always been, and I think my mum taught me this because my mum she started I don't know probably 18 or 20 businesses

and all of them have gone bust one by one and if you ask my mum why the business went bust she'll say she'll either blame it on the government she does that a lot she also spends

the other 50% of the time she blames it on either thieves or she blames it on NatWest because eight of her business properties got repossessed she taught me that inadvertently she taught me to just take the fucking

blame for everything myself and that's what we call an internal locus of control just always trying to look at what I did that could have been better is honestly what i um attribute to um being able to progress and learn from situations when you look back what are the things you think do you know what i wish i'd done that differently or what areas do you think i should take the blame for that and blame is a strong word to use but i think no no no i

think i think i think if you speak to other people around me, I think I'm quick to take the blame. I think I spoke to Matthew, one of my designers who's worked with me. He was the first designer that I took on. He still works for me. And I was saying to him, you know, I think I'm to blame for some of these things. And genuinely, I still do think I'm to blame for that. I was too open about what we were doing with the business, where we were going, what I was trying to do, and maybe just showing them too much and give them a little bit too much control.

But I always, you're always kind of, you speak to your mentors and they say, you know, you need to kind of look to build a business that will run without you being there. For sure. You know, you're always pushing. You must have been heard that. No, that's the truth. You get that a lot. So run without you being there. For sure. You know, you're always pushed. You must have been heard that. That's the truth. You get that a lot, so you push it that way. So I was undoing that and thinking,

I just let go too much, you know. I was there and I was running things. And again, typically, if something happens, you know, it's just at the fan, I'll go in and take the blame for it. And if, you know, something good's happened or whatever, then you'll try and, you know, not take and take the blame for it. And if something good's happened or whatever, then you'll try and not take the accolade for it. You'll let one of the other guys do it. And Matthew had said to me, look, you've been really good to these people. You can't

take the blame for what's gone on. They've just took advantage. So going back to answer your question, I think I was, I was maybe too open, especially the finance of the business and what was going on. I think, you know, we did, I think it was about 90 turnover in, in the December,

um, which was, which was, you know, was kind of, we were, we were bouncing about towards getting up to a million turnover, which is where I wanted to be.

And I was always open and transparent and honest and I think there's a layer there that you shouldn't go past and I've dropped that a little bit I suppose with my team now you know I don't discuss too much of what's discussed with the accountants with the senior team I'll give them enough information for them to push on and do what they need to do for the business but not the granular detail I was always warned about that from my mum and dad, you're too open

you're telling them too much my mum was always moaning that she was frustrated that her employers never did enough you know we'd get a box of chocolates at Christmas or whatever and I'd stick money in a card

for my team and always try and do as much as as much as I possibly can so I think certainly with that respect that's definitely one element just being too transparent being too open so for this

in the interest of fairness i'd love those individuals i think there's six of them right six i'd love them to be here because you kind of want to get the perspective right like yeah and i'm sure as hell they'll have a different perspective on the situation as every human being in the world would in any situation and they would have seen it from a different light they um the individuals that left they spoke to prolific north didn't they they did yeah did you read what they what they said i did am i okay to read it uh yeah is that okay yeah because i want to i want to get your take on this so yeah they said um we were informed at the end of january of mark's intentions to put the company into administration followed by a two-month absence

of both ahoy directors which is referring to yourself and another person presuming we decided to be proactive and set up this new agency um so we could fully utilize our skills and the things we'd learned essentially we were conscious of our own reputations particularly um with this not being the first time yourself had entered a company into into the position of administration um and and that's essentially what the statement says yeah um what's your response to that because that's what the first thing i read when yeah you know so to be clear on this i was given a call the night before that went live and they said we're going to run this story and i said you know please don't run the story we've been through enough

you know don't don't run the story it's've been through enough. Don't run the story. It's going to kill us. And I was told, you know, Prolific North always been good when they said, look, really, so I've got to run it. It was gutted, but they run it. So we checked what I was going to write with my solicitor. And then we got that response. And I was fuming because we disappeared for two months.

We had work going on at home. So I wasn't in as much as I would normally be. Talk to me about that. Because from my own perspective, for two months we had work going on at home so i wasn't in as much as it would normally be talk to me about that because from my own perspective on and because you can imagine that my business is at a point where uh it's big and i'm required to be all over and you know this month alone i've got uh 16 speaking appointments in different places so you know with traveling all things considered i'm here five days this month yeah so when i one of the things you know one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you is to understand um if that was part of the reason if absence and not being because you've got these two things that are at play

you've got like something went on that you didn't see when the question becomes why didn't you see it and then you know you say that you're you're out i want to make sure from a personal standpoint that i'm not like this is a very selfish like i'm not i'm just from a personal standpoint that I'm not, like this is a very selfish I'm just trying to figure out that I'm not out too much, but something similar to take place where I leave some touch Well, stepping back into a bigger picture so one of the key things

that I wanted to do with running the business was to make sure that I didn't take drastic sacrifices that I would really deeply regret as I got older. So trying to spend a bit more time with family. So my big thing was that I didn't really want to take any other holidays. But in August, when things went a little bit quiet with decision makers in the business,

my dream was to take four weeks off and we'd do camping with the family. And I did that four years, every August. And it was great because each time I went away there was mistakes that were made but then I would come back and we'd talk them through through the team so there were things that we missed out on while I was away that could have took the business forward but in general we'd go away I spent time with family I wouldn't regret that as I got older. And it was a good time of year when decision makers were and all that type of thing.

Katie had asked me, God knows how many times, must be over 12 years. You know, we've had the same kitchen in the house. Can we have a new kitchen? Can we have a new kitchen? Next year, next year, always put it off. And we'd started to talk about the fact that we'd do it. So I said, we'll do it as long as it's on a low budget and I don't want it to affect it.

So we'll sell one of the cars. We'll do it with the kitchen. Kate's brother was doing it on the cheap. He had a mate who could supply the granite. So we did it on the cheap. And yeah, so I was spending a bit more time doing that but to say I wasn't in the business I mean

we did Prolific North Live you know I did that helped put the stand up myself and stood on there for two days we did we did a restaurant and bar show and again helped set that up.

It wasn't on the stand. So I was there and I was on emails and I was in the business. I was turning up and going. I'd turn up and have stuff that I'd been painting at home or I'd paint on my jeans or whatever. So to say I disappeared is... I had a chance to respond to Prolific North

and I looked at that and I thought I'm not getting into that it was backwards and forwards it was almost beside the point a little bit in some respects you being absent isn't necessarily a good enough reason for

I can see why it happened but it doesn't really justify their actions like it's not but from my perspective um i as a ceo you're just conditioned for the buck to stop with you so and that and the blame and the everything stops with me because also as a ceo you end up getting all the credit as well. So I take both in equal measure. And I wondered if, upon hindsight, you regret not being there more through that period. If that's the first thing they cited in this response to Prolific North, it makes me think it was one of the key things,

the reasons why they were able to gather. Well, to be fair to them, you could say that was part of it, but it doesn't add up. It was three months planning, so it doesn't even add up. They started this in the start of January. What do you think it is then? Do you think it's bad people? Do you think they were...

No, I don't think they're bad people? Do you think they were? No, I don't think the bad people. I think they've just made a really bad decision with what they were doing. I don't think the bad people. I just think they've made a really rash decision. I think they've got caught up

in we could start a power on business. Okay, well, kind of compare it to like kids in a sweet shop and the sweet shop owner's gone out and you know you shouldn't be putting sweets in your pocket, but you think, right, okay, we'll do this. Right, well, we'll take a couple of staff because we're recruiting people,

so we'll get some of the staff and take them. And then, right, well, we won't take one, we'll take two. No, we won't take two, we'll take three. And before you know it, you're trying to build up your stepping stone and you've kind of just gone over, but you've kind of lost yourself. Do you think if they had a closer bond to you or the company or to the vision

or why they were there, they would have done that? I don't think so. I think it's a case of do you think they were engaged with the company they had a strong relationship with you yeah

really strong relationship very strong relationship I don't think that was the issue they've had ambition about what they want to do and it's just overridden everything else how the thing i'm trying to understand as well is how they managed to gain that like

consensus to do that because i you know and i just every time i ask these questions i'm thinking about it from my own perspective i'm like what would have to have happened for any six people here to get to a point where they come to me one day and i say steve by the way all six of us are leaving we're starting a new business and i think okay i probably the first thing was i in my head i'm like i wouldn't have been here for a couple of like a while i would go to new york and they see me like i don't know on jet skis around you know in the harbor flying around and they think well we're working here while he's off on jet skis second thing is i'm like, okay, even if I was here,

they get really disillusioned about why we're here. They don't really like being here. The third thing is, okay, one of the points you touched on where you've shared so much and the affinity to the company and what we're doing here is quite weak. So they think, do you know what?

We can actually do this ourselves and make something better than what we're in as is quite weak so they think, do you know what, we can actually do this ourselves and make something better than what we're in as a company Yeah, that's it it's, because I can imagine, I've thought about this a lot from what I can see is they've thought

we can do this, we've learnt now we can do this and we can maybe do it in a different way and What about their regard for you, though, as a person? Do they not... What do you think their feelings are to you? Do they just not care about your position? Were they remorseful at all?

Messages aside, because they weren't meant for my eyes, I think it was a bit of lad culture, bravado, kind of, you know, all in the messages, kind of. Sure, yeah, yeah. So on first sight of that, you'd take that, you know, that hurts. It really hurts. But then you take a step back and go, look, it was a frame of mind. You've got to take a bit of context with it.

It's the excitement of we're setting this up and we're going to do things different. Yeah, exactly. to take a bit of context with it, it's the excitement of we're setting this up and we're going to do things different, yeah exactly so I don't sort of hold that against them in any way so I think I think that kind of

head up and I think there was I think there was respect for me and I would think that they'll probably have moments when they're not around each other where they think they'll look at themselves in a mirror

or they'll have a moment where they think about and think pretty bad what we did to him there we left him eyeing dry that could have been the end of Ahoy that could have been the end of his career. We could have done that differently. And what's the end of your career?

No, I'm still Ahoy. So talk to me about that transition out of that then. So that happens to you. You go through that. You then put the company into administration to recover the assets, essentially. Yeah. So you can keep the brand. So we had legal fees going up really high.

We had a really good legal team. The reason we defended our position was because there was such an abundance of evidence. And we wanted to try and protect them taking clients or, you know, for instance, one of the pieces of evidence that I've come forward is that they put a credentials pack together for this new brand that they created and they'd used assets from Ahoy so they'd used their own pictures and in this credentials

pack who we've worked with, it was all the logos that we'd used, it was to a customer that had enquired to Ahoy so it looked like they'd scooped an enquiry away from Ahoy. So without going into all those details, because it's not really quite painting the picture, and I'm trying to not go into that,

you look at that and think, right, okay, that's, how far is this going to go? I've got to protect it some way. For a start, the IP, the intellectual property of what they've created, in Ahoy time, actually belongs to me. So they're using something that belongs to Ahoy. So that was something that we did protect, and they had to change their brand.

Right. Which will have been a massive inconvenience for them. But hey, they're branding it, so you just creating it creating a brand and off you go so talk to me about that process out of that so so we uh we then went through the evidence that was just tough you know going through evidence until five o'clock in the morning and pulling stuff together for the for the solicitors and then going to a meeting in liver or whatever, it's just a massive, massive drain. Going through such a wealth of it and lots of backers and forwards with the solicitors. Knowing that this is going to be in the High Court in Manchester, we got a barrister booked and we got to a point where we had our barrister booked,

everything was set, the date was set and then their solicitor came back and said, you know, we don't want to move forward, we need more time. So at that junction we said, right, we're going to give you more time, but we want an affidavit. So it's like a sworn oath of what would happen. So they signed this oath in order for us to give them more time. And they admitted the clients they'd met, files they'd taken, basically a lot of the things that they'd done. And at that time time we've got clients that are saying

you know we don't want to be involved in this tiff we can't place the work with you we've not got the confidence and we worked out

we lost about 160, 170 grand's worth of work so I've got costs going up revenues going down we we had tax repayments

that we were that we were paying through a voluntary agreement. So I'm paying off tax every month, which we've been paying. I've got costs going up. I've got income going down. And I've got, not got crystal ball. I don't know which way this is going to go. So I sat down and spoke to someone I know who was advising me.

And he just said, you know, you might have to look at a possible administration. So you do that? Yeah, so you continue the administration. Then the story, I got told the story would come out in the North and I just couldn't believe it. I was just kind of bracing myself for it. The next day I was then going to London because my daughter had an audition down there,

an acting audition, and my phone just wouldn't stop going. It was on the train to London. You know, it's like when you try to go on your train to London, you can never get reception. It was just, oh, it was just... I remember just sweating profusely, just sweating and trying to not show that i was stressed to to my daughter mia and what was the response like when when

everybody when their agency well found out that that had happened it was supportive um i'd had a lot a lot of people get in touch and say, keep going, don't give up. And I think there was a lot of, you know, bad mouthing them to a certain degree, but it was nice to get the messages to say, you know, you'll get through this, keep going, that type of thing. So it was moving, really, because some of these agency owners I'd never spoke to, some had really good relationships and met at different networking events and things like that.

So that was really nice to get those messages. So, yeah, it was nice. And then you end up bringing know really sort of you know bringing ahoy back to life you've you know restarted it now you're running again you're serving clients again yeah so we've we we had to uh rehire uh managers um get on really well with with those people now um it's really positive we've it's a smaller team so it's a little bit more manageable not a big amount to feed we

have our existing clients so they've got a couple of clients and we've got other clients that we're still working with we've won new pitches and new clients and it's positive we've moved into a new office I'm not trying to say everything's sunshine and rainbows.

Of course never, yeah. It still hurts what happened. I have moments where I found out one of them was having a baby and I thought it would have been nice to wish him well. I kind of really, deep down, hoped that I could probably speak to them at some point in the future, but it's just a bit raw at the minute. Do you think you're going to get to a point where you can forgive them and move on?

Because someone once said to me, and I think I've said this in my podcast, and it always stayed with me the day that someone said it, they said, forgiveness is letting a prisoner go. And as they run off into the distance, realising that you were the prisoner the whole time oh god yeah what you what's not healthy is just having that anger and as time moves on that gets easier um you know having those moments where you're laying bed thinking how can those people do that to me i I've had loads of people say, how did you get out of that room? How did you get out of that room without fighting or, you know, smashing something or whatever?

So I think you're right. I think you've got to forgive. But they might feel, you know, what's there to forgive? We went and set up our own agents and we took a few new staff. That's fine, but it's not for them, is it? That's what forgiveness is. I've learned forgiveness is all about. It's for you.

It's for you. Yeah, and, you know, it's for your daughter and it's for your family. It's for your sanity and your mind. And you've just got to, you know, people do you wrong, that's guaranteed. Your reaction to those situations isn't. And that's the thing you have power over now. Yeah, yeah. You can't change the past, but you can, that's the thing you have power over now. Yeah. Is, you know,

you can't change the past, but you can certainly, um, make your future much more pleasant by just letting it go. Yeah. And, and, and I think you'll find total peace in that.

Yeah. Yeah. The peace that you haven't got, you know, the real reason you wouldn't have peace now is because you're still holding it a little bit, or there's resentment, or yeah.

And it's, and that's also like rising above them, you know what I mean? That's like, that's a classy thing to do in my mind I think I've tried to you're only human I know

to let it go will be a lot easier and I'll be able to move on and I've tried to do that and I think I have done that it's better, we've said in the agency we won't talk about it done that um it's it's better you know we've said in the agency we just we're just not talking we won't talk about it you know i'd sort of you know try not to look at what they're doing on social media and again just being totally honest you do keep an eye on what they're doing yeah it's like an exit it's like flicking you could become a creep you know you've got that or whatever it's

you know but but i think for me that what happened with the terrorist attack thing, it really helped bring home just... Perspective. Perspective, yeah. Talk to me about the terrorist attack then. What happened there? Yeah, this is a bit more difficult to talk about. So, yeah, I got news of what happened in Prolific North, the story breaking, and then I had seen their response,

which was really gutting about... I decided to not do a response and call them out on a few things. I just thought, I'll just leave it. Got into London. We went and had a night out. And then on the Saturday, we went to Mia's audition. And then in the evening, we were just looking for a pub because the Champions League final was on.

And I'd said, oh, this pub, there's a bit of a beer garden at the back. It's quite enclosed. Kids can kind of mill about there if they don't want to sit up on the stairs and watch the football. We'll go and watch the footy. Footy finished and we were just about to leave and we'd made a mistake with our nachos

nachos saved our life and so they said get another round of drinks just as an apology, I was like no no don't be daft it's fine these things happen, no no please let me get another round of drinks, yeah okay no worries get us another round of drinks we had another round of drinks and then I stood up to put my jacket on,

and we were on the first floor, and I looked out into the beer garden, and there was a lady laying on the floor with about six people around her, just trying to sort of retouch her, and I think, oh, she must have choked, or had a heart attack, something like that. It turns out that was the Australian lady

that had had her throat slit and died. And then again, unbeknown, there was a lady that had been stabbed in the neck downstairs in the pub. We went downstairs and onto, underneath the bridge where the attack happened and it was just chaos. There was people screaming, shouting.

The bouncer was coming behind. He's like, you know, you're either in or you're out get out of here he didn't know what to do the family that I was with there was Gordon, Leslie and their two daughters, they went up onto the bridge and we turned left

towards Borough Market and Gordon phoned me and said, there's just carnage on the bridge there's people dead, there's people screaming, there's blood everywhere, there's a terrorist attack going on, you need to get home. So I was saying, well, what are you going to do?

Are you going to carry on across the bridge? Are you going to come back? He says, no, I'll get to the hotel. So I said, right, well, you just get to safety, we'll get to safety and I'll phone you when we're there. So we carried on past just to let you know, the pub we were in, the terrorist attack

happened, they crashed into Barrow and Banker by whatever it was we were in the pub behind it and the cathedral the terrorists had run around the back of the cathedral and towards Borough Market and unbeknownst to us we were walking

or running behind them and we got into sort of the main bit where the main market is and we could see a lot going on so we were trying to sort of see if we could get in anywhere just to get off the street you had that kind of sense of

it doesn't feel safe just sort of how many people are there how many people on the street we didn't know couldn't get in any of the doors everything just nobody let you in any of the restaurants because everyone was scared and locked inside and maybe it's because i've got a beard look like a terrorist attacker so we we um to cut the story, we got into this side entrance, got into the restaurant, stayed there, and just sat there.

And there was just this fear of, do we stay here or are we sitting ducks? Could a gun be shot through the window? Could an explosion happen? And then, sorry, before we went to the restaurant, the police had turned up and there's three policemen got out with machine guns, rifles or whatever, automatic weapons. And then I knew it was like bad. And then we hid in the restaurant.

And you're just there checking your phone and never seeing me daughter or wife so scared. It was just, I can vividly remember it now just sort of thinking back and everyone was really scared sat in the restaurant you didn't know what to do and i remember thinking well there's a knife there in the kitchen i could protect myself with that there were situations where people were opening the side door and some people were saying shut it and then someone locked it but there's no key so if they come in the front are we going to get out the back just a mishmash of like what's going to

this decision now could be us alive or dead you're thinking what are we going to do and it was just horrendous there was a lady there that couldn't stand stress or what but she was just like

against the wall got something to sit on and everyone was just just really scared huddled and it was just shots outside police running past then eventually the the police came in and they're screaming shouting you know hands on heads and everything and that's sort of a tactic that they that they use and then we went out again at the back, around the back of the cathedral and we couldn't go right towards our hotel, found out our hotel was being used as a makeshift hospital

and then we had to go left over the bridge and again seeing everything that had happened was worried about what my daughter would see and just scared and then we got to the other side of the bridge and we'd seen everything was worried about what my daughter would see and just scared and then we got to the other side of the bridge

and we'd seen everything that happened and then it was just this fear of being we're on the street still and that whole incident what impact has what lasting impact has that had on you? because I know Dom, co-founder of Social Train

he was in Paris on the first night when the attacks happened outside the football stadium and in all the coffee shops. So he again was stranded out on the streets and it's changed him in many ways, I think. He's also got a fear of certain situations to a degree. So my son didn't go to London

because of what had happened in the Manchester attack and he was also scared because we'd been to Old Trafford when the fake bomb scare happened and that was, we nearly got crushed and that was bad so he's in his mind he just didn't want to go

and we were like, I'll be fine, I'll be absolutely fine and there's just certain situations where the market's opened in Manchester, the thing I think straight away is what if there's an attack there it's just

on your mind, it's just always on your mind, you just see situations differently and there might be something that flags up you might see a certain certain type of top that someone was wearing that you remember when they were there um or a certain noise or it just it's it's always it's always there at the back of your mind the toughest thing is dealing dealing with the serendipity of it, it freaks you out. What if he'd not forgot those nachos?

How would I have dealt with being on the street with three men with knives wrapped around the... What could he have done? Would I have just took the blows and got my wife and daughter to run away? You know, Gordon was, got really upset at one point because he was thinking if I had to jump off the bridge, again, if the natural, he would have been on the bridge

as the van was coming down the bridge and he'd have had to jump over into the water. Could he have tread water with, he was swimming in a pool and he just got really upset this cycle of thought had gone through his head what if and he just couldn't get out of the loop which

would he have saved his wife or which daughter or how would he have been able to do that it just really freaks you out and it was one of those experiences I imagine that you can only really

appreciate if you were there as well and you go through it. Yeah. So, to conclude then, it's hard to, to be honest,

Steve, it's easy to tell you the facts of what happened. It's, that one is a bit more difficult to kind of tell you how it felt. Yeah.

And for anyone to resonate with how it felt, I imagine. Yeah. You don't want me getting upset on your podcast. No, it's okay. It's not really a good idea. So to conclude then, what would you say to, I've got two questions. What would you say to 18-year-old Mark? What advice would you give him?

Looking back on the things that have happened to you, you've got this incident where immense betrayal and you're stabbed in the back and the stresses of running a business and all these wonderful things which you only learn from doing, then you've got this incident in London which puts things into perspective. What would you say to 19, 18 year old Mark to prepare him for the

life that was ahead of him? Listen to the people around you that are saying you're saying too much be a little bit more guarded about the information I think the I would say to him be genuine and be genuine I would say to him be

generous and be genuine don't be scared of giving be open and honest but not at your detriment I think it's difficult because it's hard to

look at what decisions I could have made these these little details that I could have made differently but I wouldn't change how I've been with those staff members and with my existing staff members I think I would say continue to be that way but when you when things are going well when you fly in be prepared that things can come from all different angles

and you've just got to deal with it you've just got to deal with it and had you known at the very start before you started Ahoy that that was going to happen, would you have started it? I think so so if I told you it was going to happen again would you carry on?

this is the danger that it could I think it's always at the back of your mind I think yeah I would absolutely, I absolutely love what I do I love design. I love photography. Running an agency and being in control of what you do and the clients you have and the staff you bring on and bringing people together and all that kind of thing,

it is the best feeling in the world. But you will continually have the stress. That can be alleviated with things like investment and things like that to a certain degree, but you've still got that stress. And so what's the big dream then for you? What's the end goal for Mark? I think long, long term, I'd like to love France. I'd like to retire in France at some point.

I'd like to go into teaching at some point, whether that's mentoring or whether it's more one-on-one and at a lower level. So, you know, maybe teaching within design. With the agency, our dream is that we want to be known for, as a branding agency, for working with challenger brands. So taking brands that are unheard of or are certainly pegged down and just allowing them to punch way above the weight. That's still the key for us.

We want to be known for... I kind of like that feeling when you look at the site and go, oh, I know a few of those brands. Oh, that makes sense. I have all those little brands that I like, all those different things I like. It's all from this one particular agency. And just for that, i just want to make sure

we've got respect respect from the clients that we do the work with that it's it's commercial commercial it works for them it makes a big impact on their their business and also having kudos and respect from peers so the other agencies look at us and go do you know what wow they're doing really really good stuff and what on a personal level what is your what is your happiness and are you happy now is yeah well it's funny i'm saying this to someone the other day i'm working a lot harder um i'm working um longer hours and doing more things and like you what you say as well sort of managing my time i'm having to sort of really be decisive about the things i do and don't do um but i do feel a lot happier at the moment i don't know what it is i think maybe i'm a little bit closer maybe it's a

little bit smaller i feel like i've got my agency back that's what it feels like i feel I've got my agency back. That's what it feels like. I feel I've got my agency back. Some of the kind of laddy culture, which was there, has gone, which is quite nice. It's kind of like a bit of a clean slate. Sure. Bit more measured. I feel I've got the agency back.

It feels a bit more smaller and manageable. It's been great to see some of the other members of the team that were more junior when they started to have a better bond with them and see them and give them the ability to have a bit more impact on the business. That's been absolutely amazing. Seeing them move into a new office, which in all honesty, maybe that's something I should have done earlier. Maybe the team talks about moving to Manchester new office, which, you know, that's, in all honesty, maybe that's something I should have done earlier.

Maybe, you know, the team talks about moving to Manchester and that's what they did when they, they set up their, their, their other agency. Maybe that's something I should, that's something I could kick myself for.

Maybe I should have done that sooner. So, so getting our team into Manchester and seeing how happy they've been, that's been really, really rewarding. Amazing. So that's a very long interview and uh you know it's been a been a a long journey but i think it's it's given a very honest account of a situation that's happened and um i i thank you for being so open and honest um i'm very excited for to be able to share this with people and you know from my perspective and from

what i've heard from the grapevine as being an agency owner in Manchester um one of the things I've always had people say is how good the work it is you do and you know people will talk about your story because there's you know that people will gossip and they'll say good things and bad things or there'll be you know speculation but something that's never come under speculation is how good your work is and it's always been held in such a high account almost from the conversations i've had and i'm not involved in design but as the standard so that's and that's something that irrespective of betrayal or you know bad times no one can really take from you and that's the foundation of you being able

to then in my opinion go on and build something something great again because no matter how you look at it, it kind of started with you and so no one can take that. So I want to thank you for coming on. How has it been? I'm worried I've been too honest but I think that's the whole point of it.

Yeah, I just can't thank you enough. I think, you know, I appreciate your position and how busy you are and what you're doing and you're all over the world not just all over Manchester it's been really good actually

I think do you know what I'm really happy about what's that that you've challenged me on it you've actually read out that response in

Plifton Off which you didn't tell me about no you bugger it's my thing but I'm glad you've done that because it gives them

a fair kind of bite at it as well it kind of gives them it feels alright they're not in the room to be able to talk about it but it gives it kind of you've tried to see it from their side as well which I think is important

I really do just to add can't thank you enough really good so it'll be a bit weird listening to myself on the podcast when I'm driving in my van now but yeah it's great and I'm really looking forward to the other

podcasts I know you've been saying you're going to do it about Jim Shark and all that kind of thing so yeah I can't wait and thanks for you know I'm the first one yeah thanks for coming on Mark

and I really really appreciate it you're welcome appreciate it thanks