Ten years of running an agency. Ten things I've learned. OK, just one

My digital marketing agency has just turned ten. First priority (of course) was to throw a big fat party at Sookio HQ to say thanks to the team, the clients and all those lovely people who have supported us as we've grown.

Next, it's time to reflect on what I've learned along the way.

Everything was pointing towards this being a simple list article. But as I was mulling it over, it kept coming back to this one thought, again and again and again:

Everything changes.

What do I mean by this? I mean everything changes.

The industry changes

Let's take social media. When I started out, fresh from being a website editor with the BBC, Yahoo and Aol, and Project Manager for ITV.com, it was only just making an appearance. I got into Twitter and really rather loved it; the immediacy of it and the way it opened up communications in a way that just hadn't been seen before.

It wasn't long before people started asking us to manage their social media accounts or provide training so they could get to grips with it themselves.

Over time, we've seen businesses become more and more strategic. Less, "Let's all get on social media!" and more, "Why are we doing this? How can we get the best return?"

The major players themselves have changed. Facebook is ever-more dominant, despite the recent scandal over privacy and data. It owns WhatsApp and Instagram. Twitter is hanging on in there. LinkedIn has been bought by Microsoft and lets you write longform articles like this one. Social media advertising and video are now incredibly powerful features of all these platforms, to the point that you forget that this is a relatively new development.

I never did find out why Google+ was good for SEO, despite this mantra being repeated endlessly at every event I went to for a couple of years. And Ello, which showed early promise, never came to anything. Vine is much missed. And I still get an urge to share my favourite tunes on This Is My Jam, darn it.

In the midst of all these continual developments, our focus on good content has remained unchanged. It's a fine line between adapting to a fast-changing industry and bending so much that you lose sight of the reason people want to hire you in the first place.

So let's take the new trend for influencer marketing, which I know is incredibly valuable to some brands. I just can't get excited by it; the whiff of inauthenticity makes me uncomfortable.

You have to play to your strengths as an agency and we'd be kidding ourselves (and clients) if we started offering something we didn't fully believe in.

Your team changes.

Their needs, motivations and skill set changes. They'll have changes in their personal lives which you need to take into account. Maybe you'll take on more people, or lose some, as your business expands and contracts.

You'll discover the contractors who you can trust, whose work you admire, and who will act like grownups in meetings.

You'll develop running jokes and get used to each other's quirks, joys and irritations. You'll discover how people react under pressure, the hidden talents they have tucked away, what gets them up in the morning.

If you're doing things right, you'll surround yourself by people who are doing the job better than you can, and you'll learn from them too.

It's a happy day indeed when you walk into work and think: "I like it here, and I like these people." I get that frequently, and it makes me feel very lucky indeed.

Your clients change.

Not just who they are, but their needs. Take our work with different colleges and departments at the University of Cambridge for example - even within one institution there's a tremendous variation in objectives for each project and the work we deliver.

Compare that to other clients in education, and to those in different sectors like healthcare, science and tech, and then to the huge variety of size of organisations, from global property giant Jones Lang LaSalle right down to startups in the Cambridge tech cluster, and you start to see a huge range of business goals. But there's a surprising amount of overlap where you least expect it too.

For some people, it's all about getting on the first page of Google. Others are starting completely from scratch and need to make a name for themselves. Others want to filter in (and out) the best applicants. Gaining leads and getting a good return on the investment is always going to be important.

The most important thing we can do is listen. We never go into a new project having already decided what the client wants. It's all about understanding their individual needs, their challenges and who they're trying to reach.

Your business changes.

It has to, if you're going to adapt to all of the above. Especially in a fast-moving industry like digital. When I was first starting out, fighting back against this double whammy of pregnancy and redundancy, my modus operandi was to never turn any work down.

Several years into the business, and as we grew to several members on the team, it became clear that a little refinement was needed. It was at this point that I drew some boundary lines around our offering.

Otherwise, you find yourself saying yes to things when deep down there's a little voice saying quietly, "Er, this isn't really what we do and we have no one to deliver it."

You have to listen to this voice, otherwise you're not being fair to clients.

PR is a common example. There's sort of an overlap with digital marketing, but I definitely wouldn't go ask far as promising clients that we'll get them coverage in the broadsheets. Writing a press release, yes. Building up relationships on Twitter with relevant journalists, yes. Actually phoning them up to badger them into writing a story...nope, that's not us.

Or building websites. Technically we can do this. But you probably want to get someone in who's more up to date with the latest trends in web development and who'll do a better job. Website builds are complex beasts and we're constantly seeing projects that are delivered weeks, if not months, late. We much prefer to focus on the content that goes on them.

Making this decision is what's worked for us. Narrowing the scope to just content, but broadening it out to encompass copywriting, social media, video and design, coupled with strategy and training. It's about becoming proactive rather than reactive.

Yes, I know this sounds a bit Alan Partridge: "We evolve, we don't revolve."

It's true though. We proact, we don't react!

Your surroundings change.

This could be as simple as an office move.

I went from working at home, to a room over a spa (how lovely to walk over the beautiful black and white tiled floor and smell the gentle fragrance in the air each morning), to shared office space next to a rare diseases charity and classical music publicists.

And then, in September 2017, to the current Sookio HQ on Mill Road in Cambridge. It's what you could call the Bohemian end of town, and gives us the light, airy, creative space that I always wanted. We have room to grow (and a terrace for cocktails to boot!)

This is the ever-popular view from the window in our main office.

A change in clients and projects can mean you suddenly find yourself - as I have done - in a ski lift halfway up the Austrian alps mentoring young creative directors.

Up The Shard, doing a Facebook Live with Sage, sharing tips on content marketing to a potential audience of around 750k people.

Or filming interviews for a project that took us from the cliffs in Ibiza to a boxing ring in Dublin to a narrow boat chugging through the canal in Little Venice.

I often share my expertise on the radio, in workshops or in rooms of people at conferences and meetups. Different places, different people. Varying degrees of nervousness beforehand but the same pleasure afterwards when it's gone well.

Changes in surroundings like this keep you fresh. We're always learning, always thinking about communications, wherever we are - whether it's looking at longform copy on the Underground, packaging design in the supermarket, or chatting with peers at conferences. We're always updating our Instagram feed and Pinterest boards, and reflecting on what we've learned through the Sookio blog.

Be interested and interesting, that's what I always say. Oh God, I'm going all Partridge again.

Last of all, you change

I should have published this article last week when it was our official 10th birthday.

But! In the last fortnight, I've had concussion following a nasty knock to the head, followed by an operation on my knee. I'm only just today properly up and about and feeling like myself again. Excuse me while I hastily check Twitter for signs of confusion - phew, no more than normal...

But you'll find things like this happen. I founded the business in the year I lost my Dad; six years later I found myself running out of the office after the hospice called to say Mum was taking her final breaths. Keeping things going in the traumatic period running up to this and then while in the fog of bereavement...let's just say I heard the phrase, "I don't know how you do it," a lot.

The thing is, you just do. I know other business owners who have had all manner of challenges and tragedies in their personal lives, and the common thread is that we're all a bit more resilient than we give ourselves credit for.

You also find your ambitions and motivations change. In the early days it was all about moulding Sookio into some sort of shape, and it's a great feeling to have created something that simply wasn't there before.

Nowadays, it's more about growth and - if I'm honest - getting even more recognition for the work we do. We have a fair few awards on the mantelpiece at HQ but I'd like some more please. We're ambitious and want to take on bigger projects that cover the full scope of our services. We want that satisfying feeling of doing great work and learning new things too.

I'm also finding myself in the position of being an established business owner with knowledge and encouragement to share. Less a thought leader than a leader who thinks, who wants to keep learning and understanding and sharing the knowledge where she can.

Happy birthday Sookio. The first ten years have been a blast - let's do it all again.