How High School Best Friends Created One of The Fastest Growing Media Agencies in Australia
On Episode 15 of the “Future of Australia” podcast, I speak with Jon Bonwick and Scott Thomson, the Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of BRMM, a media agency that grew 52% last year.
This made BRMM, on the Financial Review list of 100 fastest growing new companies in Australia, and one of the fastest growing media agencies in Australia.
[ Click Here to Listen to the Podcast in SoundCloud or Listen in iTunes, or search " Future of Australia" or " Derek Stewart" in your iPhone or Android podcast app]
We Discuss...
- How Jon and Scott became close friends in year 7 at school, and stayed in touch for 30+ years, following parallel paths in media and advertising, but only worked together recently.
- What media and message drives results, with improved analytics and precision.
- Why you should start with your big challenges, your “Big Rocks”, and why these need to be done first
- The laziness in human nature which pushes people towards easy solution. How they stay hungry and ambitious instead
- Values of restlessness to challenge each other, challenge industry norms, and how that created strong value for their clients
- What it is like to suddenly be responsible for millions of dollars of client media spend, as well as your own hiring, staffing and delivery
- Having a great team you are proud of and can hang out with, not just work colleagues, but can also call them friends
- The importance of throwing everything at it, and not looking back, and encouraging your staff to do the same.
- How their pitch deck has evolved since they began, how they have improved the depth, quality and richness rapidly, while keeping their values the same
- Becoming one of the fastest growing media agencies in Australia by keeping all their existing clients from the first 12 months, and growing organically through their referrals
- Why hiring the right people at the right time was the biggest growth challenge, both the timing of bringing people on for new clients, as well as not burning them out
- Spending tens of thousands of dollars for their clients on MarTech reporting platforms, to be able to better offer their clients transparency about their results
- While an individual’s character is the most important thing you need to keep an eye on, and the hard lessons learned around that
- Why professional services firms like KPMG and Deloitte are now getting in to the MarTech world
- The change of people being able to get the content they want, when and how they want it, and the decreasing costs of consumption
- The huge expense of major sport licensing rights, and why that is putting pressure on low cost business models
- Why CRM and marketing automation is an increasingly valuable asset for a company to own, and why all media spend should result in growth to database size and information richness
- Why the AFL may eventually own their own rights, and then licence it out under an NFL style model
- How content consumption has changed from a mass media live audience, to a hybrid live, live stream, pre-recorded
- Culturally Australians like to come up with new ideas and test things, but why the lack of supporting infrastructure leads to intellectual property being capitalised overseas instead of within Australia
- Knowing your why, and your own emotional motivations before taking on the big challenge of running a business. How it even shows up when you meet with prospective clients, and how it has a big impact on your odds of success
- Why they have “Insight Leads Change” written on their office walls, and the drive to never be satisfied with what they have or how they do it, because Change is the heart of their business
- “We are here to solve problems, we use media and marketing as a vehicle to do that”
- Why providing advice around MarTech, CRM and automation to their clients is an increasing part of their business
[ Click Here to Listen to the Podcast in SoundCloud or Listen in iTunes, or search " F uture of Australia" or " Derek Stewart" in your iPhone or Android podcast app]
Podcast Episode History:
Episode 1: "Family Business & Real Estate: How Husband and Wife QLD Entrepreneurs Found A Gap in The Market"
Episode 2: "Law & Accounting Firm A.I and Automation + Doubling Revenue TWICE in 12 Months"
Episode 3: "Expat Entrepreneurship & Maximising Your Marketing Dollars"
Episode 4: "Turning a Hobby Selling Quirky Gifts Online Into a Multi-Million Dollar Business"
Episode 5: "Owning 20+ Properties In His 20s to Buying 40 Per MONTH for Clients"
Episode 6: "Engineering Entrepreneurship and Managing BILLION Dollar Assets"
Episode 7: "One Day Away From Shutting Down to 1000% Annual Growth"
Episode 8: "From Losing Your Co-Founder to 59% Growth the Next Year"
Episode 9: "Female Entrepreneurship And Starting a Business 11 Days After Giving Birth"
Episode 10: "From Door-To-Door Salesman To $11 Million Annual Revenue Within FIVE Years"
Episode 11: "From Podiatry Intern to 60+ Employee Health SuperCentre"
Episode 12: "From Selling Burned CDs to $350mm in Annual Revenue"
Episode 13: "Developing a Growth Mindset and Perth Entrepreneurship Going Global"
Episode 14: "From Army Officer to $23mm Annual Revenue Canberra Consultancy in 3 Years"
?Hi, my name is Derek. "FUTURE OF AUSTRALIA" is a project I am running to interview the Founders, CEOs and Entrepreneurs behind the fastest growing businesses in Australia. These interviews will be turned into podcast episodes, as well as articles.
"FUTURE OF AUSTRALIA" is about interviewing, celebrating and sharing the knowledge, aspirations, struggles, goals and achievements of these people with a broader audience.
If you are interested in contributing, learning more of keeping in the loop with our updates and email newsletter, email me at [email protected], or give me a call or text on 0404 689 897.