My view on the Impact of moving 'client-side' 6 months in

People used to look at my CV and say. 'Wow! Never seen a CV like this before.'

That's because for over 10 years I was a 'permalancer' - someone who was a constant freelancer, flitting from marketing agency to marketing agency, impacting on clients in short (sometimes longer!), sharp bursts but never investing in the long-term plan of the company I worked for. And this was fine. It suited my lifestyle and life-stage at the time.

But just before Covid struck, with 3 kids to feed, I took my first agency permanent job since 2006. Lucky I did too, as what was to follow was certainly no place to be for a permalancer. While the security was an obvious benefit (I was a participant in the furlough scheme), the feeling that I was missing something was growing exponentially everyday. It took me a while to figure out what I was yearning for, but eventually I figured it out. Impact!

Earlier this year, I joined #carbonmanagement experts, Cogo , for my first 'client-side' role since my days at NOKIA way back in the noughties. No lie, from minute 1, day 1, I felt like I had found what I was looking for. And I've been wanting to blog about why that is for a while, but life at Cogo is fast, life at home is hectic. But after nearly 8 months in role, I have found a Saturday afternoon to put down into words what exactly it is.

IMPACT - making a difference, personally

As an agency person, you generally don't work on one 'client' (this is agency parlance for brand or paying customer) but several, sometimes even many! At one agency I worked for, I had 8 clients! For me, 6 too many to service properly. What this meant is that on any given day, my attention was never in one place for more than a few hours. And neither could it have been - the client was only paying for so much of my time, so that is how much time I was allowed to give them. For a long-time this was a benefit of working for an agency! You work on loads of different brands, in loads of different categories and learn many different styles of marketing. Great!

But for me, this became less advantageous as time went on. I was no longer interested in chasing the shiny new thing, but more intent on driving change and making a significant difference in one place. So inevitably my agency days were numbered. My switch to the client-side has given me a sharp focus and a clear objective. I can finally sit down at my computer each morning and know that my main objective doesn't change. I can pool all my efforts into the pursuit of achieving that goal. And it feels good. Settled. Not complacent settled, though.

IMPACT - making a difference, in my company

This might be controversial, but I felt agency life was always tinged with a touch of the malicious. Over-accountability to clients, audacious demands of my time, backbiting and infighting, the never-ending fight between suit and creative, the endless pursuit of more, more, more.

I never felt that sense of 'family' which every agency claims to have. Nor the feeling that my best interests were always being catered for. And this was true in my permanent and freelance agency roles. (And just to reiterate, this is my personal experience, not a review of agency life for all.) Thus, I didn't feel my voice could or would be heard above all the other noise and my opportunity to influence would be slight to none.

This feeling is non-existent in my role at Cogo. Here I feel I can make a significant impact on the direction of the company, my team and our customers. And I put this down to the Cogo #values.

Mission Driven | Trust & Transparency | Lead with Integrity | Together we Grow

I feel another blog coming soon about what these mean and how they affect me. But for now, I will leave it at this - everyone seems to live and breathe these values not just as employees, but as human beings! It means we all pull in the same direction. We all want to get to the same place, maybe via different routes, but always the same place. I love this.

It may also be that as a mission-driven company, this plays into my own set of values and potentially my ego! Whatever it is, it's working for me, and I feel like the best days of my career are yet to come, helping to drive this start-up to greater and grander things.

IMPACT - making a difference, for our planet

I would never be able to do this agency-side. Or not for long anyway. There are very few sustainability companies out there with the budget to use an agency, and agency retention rates are not known for their longevity anyway. Plus agencies are generally driven by generating more work (and therefore more consumerism as nearly all marketing seeks to generate sales of some kind).

Being client-side working for a sustainably-led climate fintech means I can focus my skills on our one main aim - to lower everyone's #carbonfootprint. And while I am under no illusions about the size of the task, I am driven by the thought that if our work convinces just one person a day to make more #sustainable choices, then over the course of time, the collective actions of those people WILL make a difference to our climate.

That's what I need to believe anyway. As you may be aware, there's no Planet B! We only get one go at life on Earth. We should all do our best to make sure future generations get that one chance too.

So my move client-side has been rather successful, for me at least. I wake up itching to get started, and sometimes struggle to pull myself away from Slack at the day's end, although the kids are pretty good at doing that for me.

Agency life taught me many things for which I am grateful. I also met some of the most awesome people there is to meet at these agencies. And I will always see my agency time as a critical learning experience. The client-side is now where I feel I belong, putting into practice all that I have learned, making sure I help drive my company to new heights, in my own way. The future is green! And I aim to colour it so.