The true story of how Tim Sands built a global B2B tech agency without a physical footprint – on the Splendid Group podcast.

Tim Sands (00:03):

The thought was that, actually can we partner lower-cost resources with very senior experienced B2B advertising practitioners? Kind of like a lawyer-paralegal model. And will that enable us to do more work, have our senior people across more larger, heavier problems with the operations being done by a more cost-effective resource? And that’s, again, the model we’ve built out. And we’ve got some crazy talented people, in the Philippines especially, and they’re integral to our business. We’ve just had an offsite in Bali with that whole team, flew people out from Australia and had a wonderful time. Initially, the thought was that that’d be an operations back-office function, but that couldn’t be further from the truth now. They’re mission-critical to Splendid’s growth and success.

Barrie Seppings (00:50):

Welcome back to Plugged In, Switched On, where we pull you into the conversations that matter in B2B Tech marketing. I am your host, Barrie Seppings. And the quote you heard at the top of the show was from Tim Sands. He’s actually the CEO of Splendid Group. More from Tim in just a moment. If you are new to the pod, welcome. Let me show you around. We do three things here at Plugged In, Switched On. Firstly, we get some of the most interesting people in B2B Tech marketing tell us how and why they do what they do. Secondly, we look at some of the core skills a marketer needs in B2B Tech marketing, things like ABM programs, the partner ecosystem and the relationship, for example, between sales and marketing. And finally, we do special episodes where we pull back the curtain on how these teams and leaders operate.

(01:40):

That’s exactly the episode we are doing today. We’re going to look at how remote working has landed. Particularly, we’re now several years beyond the pandemic, the experiment is done, the results are in. Splendid Group, if you’re not aware, is 100% remote agency. It started that way from the very beginning with the founder, Tim Sands, who is one of our guests on the episode today. And Tim, the question I want to ask you is, why did you want to start your own agency and why did you want it to be 100% remote?

Tim Sands (02:16):

Initially, I was working big agencies, working on great massive multinational tech companies and really enjoyed it. But had a wife who wanted to move states and live in a much smaller island, Tasmania, and there wasn’t the same advertising opportunities down there. So from necessity it needed to be remote, but the dream was to still build a global agency and work with amazing tech companies. So that was the problem that needed solving.

Barrie Seppings (02:47):

Did you attempt to find a solution with the big agencies you were working with? Or you just thought, from the get go, they’re not going to let me work from Tasmania in this role? Did you talk to them about it first or you just said, no, I’m going to go build my own?

Tim Sands (03:02):

At the time, it was time for me to start sewing myself. Ever since I was a grad, wanted to build an agency. I think it coincided with the point of my career where it was time to do my own thing, seen enough and needed to know if I could run an agency myself. And so it was definitely time was just, could it be done from Hobart or elsewhere? The idea behind remote came from my business partner who was, Mark Ryan, who was pioneering offshore dev into agencies at the time. And the hypothesis was, can this be done for the broader agency experience? And having worked in Tech B2B for many, many years with like Microsoft, IBM, Dell, had a lot of great relationships with some pretty smart marketers in those companies, and that’s where the first brief came from. It was tapping into that existing network, getting one brief, getting a second brief, and moving on from there.

Barrie Seppings (03:56):

Was there a sense that it was always going to be around B2B and it was always going to be around technology, or you just started there and see where it went?

Tim Sands (04:05):

There was definitely a niche in the market, and I think there still is a definite need for that Tech B2B specialization. It’s complex industry, you can’t walk in there and bluff it. You need to be able to dive into some pretty complex issues very, very quickly and you need a wealth of experience and expertise in the sector to be able to do that effectively. The ambition has always been global in nature, and I think that technology clients we work with, being large multinational vendors, enable that.

Barrie Seppings (04:34):

And did you start working with big brands and the vendors at start or was it further down in the ecosystem and the resellers and the partners?

Tim Sands (04:43):

The first client we had was Microsoft’s partner ecosystem and helping their partners drive growth through MDF campaigns, through lead gen. So from very small beginnings. And you pick up one small brief and then a slightly bigger second brief and then a marginally bigger third brief, and then you’re winning RFPs with Microsoft across ANZ and then moving on to winning RFPs in Europe and also Southeast Asia as well.

Barrie Seppings (05:11):

Was there a point you went, okay, I feel like I’m big enough, I could go get a desk somewhere or I could go get an office somewhere? Or did you decide, no, I’m going to be set up at home and I’m going to do that kind of forever?

Tim Sands (05:23):

No, yeah, there was never ever an intention to have an office. So I live in Tasmania and don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. I think the thought of an actual office is kryptonite at the moment. The thought of commuting, working in an office, that ship has sailed. We’ve moved around a lot, so I’ve spent five years in Darwin, spent time in Melbourne, obviously a lot of time in Hobart, and around Tasmania just following my wife and her work in various hospitals. And so, that necessitated the need to be remote and to not be fixed to a certain location or attached to clients in a certain location.

Barrie Seppings (06:02):

And then at some point there’s more work than you can do and you need more people. Who were the first people you spoke to, to say, would you like to come and work with me in this style? And what was the response?

Tim Sands (06:15):

I think you reach out to people you know and trust and have worked with before, and I think that opened up so many opportunities in terms of their response. There’s this enormous amount of talent out there that no longer gels well with traditional ad agency life, where you’re commuting, you’re going into the office, you’re working 60 plus hours a week. For people who want families, have a side hustle, want a better work-life balance, that doesn’t work anymore. So being able to offer people that agency experience that I wanted, but also the flexibility to do the school pick-up, work from home, not spend 60 minutes each day commuting plus, that struck home with a lot of amazing people. And for us, gave us access to talent that we wouldn’t have in the big cities because they’d want to work for a larger agency. So initially, it was about giving them the opportunity but also about us getting amazing talent.

Barrie Seppings (07:11):

Speaking of those senior talented people who’ve been in large agencies and didn’t want to be there anymore and were attracted to the model that you’ve built, Tim. Our second guest here with us today, Tina Semple, you are the director of the Australian-New Zealand operations for Splendid Group. And you’ve come from exactly that scenario that Tim was talking about. How did the idea of Splendid and remote work turn up on your doorstep and how did you react to that at first?

Tina Semple (07:38):

So we moved away from Bando to Bathurst, so a bit of a change for us, and I was kind of looking around in my network and seeing what opportunities do I have and what can I do? And spoke to Tim about working remotely. And that really was something that enabled me to continue my career living where I do, but also be there for our kids.

Barrie Seppings (08:07):

And that’s a working relationship that existed previously, you’ve worked together in a professional sense beforehand. So having that connection before, was that critical to knowing that you could sort of trust how it was going to get managed?

Tina Semple (08:19):

Yeah, I think so. I think so, and knew, we worked together at URCG a hundred years ago, but yeah, so that was certainly part of why I felt comfortable with that arrangement.

Barrie Seppings (08:34):

And then just thinking back to that time in big agency, you don’t have to name specific ones, but did you feel that pressure, particularly as a woman, as a working mum, in that agency life? That it wasn’t going to fit together and the agency wasn’t interested in making it fit for you?

Tina Semple (08:51):

Yeah, certainly at the time. I think it’s probably changed a little bit now, it’s probably gotten a bit better. But at the time, I think as long as you didn’t have kids, big agency worked fine and was a lot of fun. But as I had my first child and was looking to go back to work after she was just under a year and I was told the only opportunity I could have to come back to this agency was with a client that would involve a lot of travel, so I would have to be away from my family and my child a lot. And I just said, “No, that’s really not going to work for me at all.” And there wasn’t really a willingness to change things around to make it fit for me and my new lifestyle.

Barrie Seppings (09:42):

Is your partner also working from home? Because Bathurst is not the hub for many things, except maybe during car racing, once a year.

Tina Semple (09:52):

Yeah, so we’re both working from home. So I think the great thing about Splendid is that we do have the flexibility and the autonomy to make those decisions in terms of what suits you and your lifestyle in terms of how you run your day. So typically, we do work during the day but always do kids drop-offs, kids pickups. And then typically what happens is, that I disappear from about three o’clock when all the school pickups happen and then usually there’s kids sports, et cetera, et cetera, and then there’s the whirlwind of getting all the dinners and kids to sleep and all those sorts of things. But then I usually pick up again later on at night and just finish the things that I haven’t done. Lots of meetings during the days, try to do all the meetings where I need to be on Teams, and then catch up after I’ve got all the kids sorted at night typically with everything else.

Barrie Seppings (10:42):

Tim, is that a written policy or is it communicated about the flexibility? Or have you just taken the approach that we’re going to hire mature people and let them work it out?

Tim Sands (10:53):

No, there’s no policy. We hire senior people and we give them a whole lot of autonomy that comes with the responsibility, but trust them to figure it out. And to be honest, it’s not limited to senior people within the organization, it’s right across the board. We don’t care where they are, what they’re doing, as long as it’s productive, clients are happy, the work’s great, we’re getting results. What happens in between? No one cares.

Barrie Seppings (11:19):

And so, what are you doing to measure that productivity, that work getting done?

Tim Sands (11:24):

Yeah, there’s soft metrics which, are clients happy? Are your team happy? Are you delivering on commitments? Are you helping out people within the agency? But then there’s hard metrics, like utilization, like availability, like time sheets.

Barrie Seppings (11:38):

Ah, time sheets, I knew the conversation we’d get there. Tina, you’re in charge of a fairly large and diverse spread out team, and all of those individuals have that same flexibility and freedom. How do you lead that team and how do you keep in touch with them? What’s the routine in relationship to leading and managing the people that are delivering for you?

Tina Semple (11:56):

Look, I think we’re getting really good at meetings, because we do quite a lot of them. So we have quite a structured approach to meetings and catch-ups. So we have team meetings, where the whole team catches up every week and go through what their priorities are for the week, so you know things are happening. Also, we use those meetings to resolve any blockers that are coming up. And then we have morning huddles every single day, which is just a very short stand-up meeting to just cover off any blockers. And then we do one-on-one meetings, so you have that one-on-one time with your direct reports as well. So lots of meetings in terms of having those short catch-ups, and quite a structured approach to it in terms of what needs to be covered off.

Barrie Seppings (12:43):

And what are the warning signs for you when someone is starting to get a bit disengaged or that remote method is not working for them? Are there things that you see that you’re like, okay, I need to lean in a bit and help this person a bit more?

Tina Semple (12:56):

I think we’ve got a culture where everyone is really approachable. If someone is kind of falling off a bit, I think they will reach out before that happens. And I think the structure we have in terms of catch-ups and one-on-ones will always allow, there’s enough check-ins for us to kind of see if someone is not performing or not feeling it in the meeting.

Barrie Seppings (13:17):

Tim, it’s a B2B agency, it’s a technology agency for marketing, what technology does the agency itself use to facilitate all of this remote working with people being a part? There’s the obvious stuff, like we’re on video calls, like Teams calls, what’s the other infrastructure that’s critical to make all of this work?

Tim Sands (13:38):

There isn’t one specific platform, it’s a few different technologies, like Trello, our internal system called Scoro, obviously Teams is a massive part of what we do. So those will be the three core platforms. But it’s about the processes and systems we’ll put in place on top of those platforms. Tina mentioned the sort of regular check-ins, and that internal meeting cadence is so important because you don’t have the water cooler chat, you don’t have the bump into the hallway and hey, I just saw you and thought about this. You need to create opportunities for those to happen in the absence of a physical environment, and that’s what I think we’ve taken a lot of time to perfect, and it works pretty well.

Barrie Seppings (14:21):

What’s been the evolution of working out what you do with these in real life meetings? And how important have you discovered that social aspect or that connection aspect to be?

Tim Sands (14:32):

Yeah, it’s great in terms of delivering work remotely and collaborating and coming with amazing solutions as a remote team, but coming together in real life was a bit of a challenge, didn’t know really how that all worked. So I think, again, having a rhythm about it. So we try to get together once a quarter and do no work when we’re actually together, we’re doing enough work day to day, it’s about connections, about catching up, learning more about the people we’re working with, and just having a relationship with those people. And what we find every time is that we have an in real life catch up, and any issues that might be bubbling away gets resolved pretty quickly. So it’s important to have those regular check-ins and get to know your onscreen colleagues as humans and enjoy working with each other.

Barrie Seppings (15:20):

Tina, I want to ask you about that same dynamic, but on the client side. How long can you go without not meeting a client face-to-face? How critical is it to go spend time with them?

Tina Semple (15:31):

That’s probably the biggest challenge being a remote business. I think you do need to see clients every now and then, and for the same reason, catch up and have those conversations that are not always strictly business as well. So I think we do make an effort on going and seeing clients probably, I’d say, once a quarter. At the same time as we’re meeting up with our teams, we go and see a couple of clients and have both business meetings but also have some social time with a lot of our clients.

Barrie Seppings (16:06):

There’s also a new focus on spending more time with clients at their events, at their conferences, at where what would typically be a shop floor for a more physical business, but these are service businesses, technology businesses. What’s been the strategy here with spending more time with them in those kind of environments?

Tina Semple (16:27):

It’s basically getting to know the clients better and getting to know their products. And I think you both have a good analogy, of saying it’s like walking the factory floor of a business. So yeah, it’s hugely valuable for us to go and spend time with our clients on events that they organized just to get to know them better and also spend time with clients there.

Barrie Seppings (16:50):

You’ve been growing the agency, and obviously within the Australian-New Zealand remit for the first few years, but over the last little while you’ve gone global. So you’ve now got remote teams in geographies like Europe, you’re in the UK, you’ve got teams across Southeast Asia, or individuals at least. What’s been the challenges with scaling up remotely in other physical locations? You’ve got jurisdictions, you’ve got other laws and hiring rules, all sorts of stuff, you’ve got currencies, and then you’ve got different uses of technology. So what have you found as challenges as you’ve gone outside the borders of Australia to grow Splendid while staying remote?

Tim Sands (17:29):

I think the first thing is talent, having the right people will solve 90% of issues. We’re lucky on that front, we’ve got some incredible people working in EMEA, in Singapore, in Southeast Asia, so that’s been incredible. The biggest issue has been around standardization of processes, not so much the technology that the team’s working on, but how they’re using that technology. And for us as an agency, to maximize the resources we have available, it’s about having one process regardless of geography so that we can have a pretty uniform and consistent way to approaching communications problems and delivering on briefs. And for us, that 24 hour working model where you’re handing off work to creators in the UK, they’ll get it to a point and hand it back to creators in ANZ, so it greatly increases the time we can get to market and what we can deliver for our clients.

Barrie Seppings (18:23):

Part of that growth as well has been building up a fairly significant team now that are predominantly Philippines based. Most companies, particularly western companies that do that approach start off looking at a lower cost base for a lot of back office functions. Is that where it started as well for Splendid?

Tim Sands (18:43):

Yeah, absolutely. I think we’re like everyone else in that respect, looking for more cost-efficient models to do some basic back of house tasks. That’s how it started. I think we’re pretty lucky with the first hire we had there, so an amazing talent, super efficient, and we’re just sort of astounded with the expectation versus what they’re actually able to deliver. Based on that first experience it’s, okay, where else can we actually take this and drive economies while not sacrificing any quality or the ability to service clients and have great relationships with clients? Again, the thought was that actually, can we partner lower cost resources with very senior experience B2B advertising practitioners? Kind of like a lawyer-paralegal model. And will that enable us to do more work, have our senior people across more larger,  heavier problems with the operations being done by a more cost-effective resource?

(19:35):

And that’s, again, the model we’ve built out. And we’ve got some crazy talented people, in the Philippines especially, and they’re integral to our business. We’ve just had an offsite in Bali with that whole team, flew people out from Australia and had a wonderful time. Initially, the thought was that that’d be an operations back office function, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Now they’re mission-critical to Splendid’s growth and success.

Barrie Seppings (20:00):

Tina, you’ve got a bunch of those people directly in your team. What’s the level are they at now? Are they client facing? Are they doing specialist tasks? Are they becoming part of the agency? Are they driving business?

Tina Semple (20:11):

Yeah, very much so. We’ve got a range of skills across the board with all of the team members, and they vary from admin support to digital media specialists, and they help with proposals, they help with lots of different things, so there’s a great variety of skills and they’re integral to the entire business.

Barrie Seppings (20:30):

What did you discover, Tim, when you brought everybody together for that offsite? Because I assume, like a lot of us, you don’t get to see each other face-to-face. Was that the same for the team that was based there?

Tim Sands (20:38):

Yeah, because a lot of them hadn’t actually seen each other either for the first time so that was… But it’s a similar feeling when we catch up in Australia. We spend hours and hours each day with these people, they’re a big part of your life, so when you meet them, there’s about 30 seconds of weirdness, like you’re a lot taller than I thought you’d be.

Barrie Seppings (20:56):

You’ve got legs.

Tim Sands (20:57):

Yeah, you’re not just a torso. But then you sort of slide into the familiarity that you’ve developed and the relationship that you’ve developed online.

Barrie Seppings (21:07):

Right, right.

Tim Sands (21:07):

So there’s a weird initial double take, and then you just pick up your relationship where you left it off the screen.

Barrie Seppings (21:13):

Tina, do you imagine yourself going back to an office or a corporate job having had the remote experience? Certainly the way that Splendid’s rolled it out.

Tina Semple (21:22):

Yeah, no, I don’t think so. I think, no, look, at least not where I’m at in my life at the moment. I think the work-life balance is really important to me and it’s really important for Splendid, and it’s something it works really well for me and my family at the moment. So no, I wouldn’t go back to an office at the moment. No.

Barrie Seppings (21:45):

Tim, it’s been described, your agency model, particularly when covid hit, as the Stephen Bradbury of agency models. You’re skating along at the back there just doing your own thing, covid takes everybody out, and you skate through to the front. Have you seen flattery? Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Are you seeing other agencies get more hybrid or other agencies going fully remote in the way that you’ve been able to build it?

Tim Sands (22:09):

Yeah, I think covid, everyone had to do that. So initially it was a fear that we’re going to lose an edge, but again, it legitimized the business model for especially our clients. And I think what we’re seeing now is more people being forced back into the office, so people wanting to see people on the floor, which has never been a part of our sort of ethos. So I think if anything, it’s going back the other way.

Barrie Seppings (22:30):

As you’re approaching talent now, are you seeing some of that reticence of that frustration that they are being forced back into the office and they would like to seek something with more balance or more autonomy? Is there still that hangover?

Tim Sands (22:44):

Yeah, starting to see that, it’s starting to emerge. And I think we’re pretty fortunate now, versus 10 years ago, global agency got blue chip clients, so the thought of the work isn’t an issue in terms of hiring that senior talent, we’ve got the creative strategic account service opportunities. And if anything, it’s going to be easier for us to acquire great talent because that flexibility is starting to disappear from multinational agencies or larger agencies.

Barrie Seppings (23:14):

Well, we’ve had some really talented and experienced B2B Tech marketers on the pod over the last 12 months. We always ask them for their advice on managing remote teams or working themselves remotely, how they thrive as leaders in a hybrid work environment. Let’s have a little listen to what some of them had to say. Friend of the podcast, Mark Fenson, is an evangelist and an innovation expert, he works for HP. He had a great response to the question about he manages his work.

Mark Fenson (23:47):

You can work whenever you see fit, you’re working from home, you’re in the office. I like to call it a half-ass Monday. Sometimes I’ll go in, show my face, go to the gym, leave, come home, have lunch with my wife, and probably get more done that afternoon than what I would’ve done in the office. But it’s about finding the best fit for you and your family, and no one can have a conversation other than you and your boss about, this is the best way I work.

Barrie Seppings (24:12):

That’s pretty good to hear from somebody senior within a company like HP. How do you go about, Tina, managing those sorts of differences between people in your team? Or do you have a blanket rule for people?

Tina Semple (24:24):

What we do say to everyone is that, look, if you’ve got to go to an appointment or if you want to go to the gym, that’s absolutely fine, you manage your time, just block it out in your calendar so no one books you in for meetings at that time. And that’s kind of it really. We trust that everyone can get their work done. And exactly like Mark was saying, I couldn’t agree more, I think you’re so much more efficient when you are working from home. You probably do get more done in half a day than what you would in one day in an office, I would say.

Barrie Seppings (24:53):

What’s the old adage? If you want something done, give it to a busy person, right?

Tina Semple (24:57):

Yes, that’s it.

Tim Sands (24:58):

If you want something done fast, give it to a busy mom.

Barrie Seppings (25:00):

Tim, you started off hiring predominantly from the working mom or the returning to work mom talent pool. Is that still kind of a bit of a backbone or a go-to?

Tim Sands (25:12):

I’d say yeah, I think that’s probably the majority of senior talent we have. We’ve broadened a lot since then with the workforce we have, just through sheer scale. But it still is 100% a big part of the agency’s sort of makeup. As we scale and need to scale up pretty quickly to meet pretty heavy project demands and then potentially flex the actual resource pool, those working moms that want to plug in for 20 hours a week, sometimes 30 hours a week, sometimes 10 hours a week, in terms of the bench of people we have to be able to scale, absolutely, that working mom workforce is a big part of what we do. And strangely, we have quite a big presence in Byron Bay now.

Barrie Seppings (25:53):

Working, surfing moms.

Tim Sands (25:54):

Working, surfing, that’s a legit demographic, and one that hiring managers need to look into.

Barrie Seppings (26:02):

One of the other great talented B2B leaders we spoke to during the year was Sonya Aboudargham, she’s at Dicker Data. And she spoke to us pretty candidly about what it’s like to be a single mom in a really high-powered marketing role in B2B Tech. Here’s what she told us.

Sonya Aboudargham (26:18):

So I’m a single mom, Barrie, I’ve got a little girl who’s at school. One of the things I’m very grateful for is the flexibility that we have, and I think one of the great outcomes of the pandemic has been the rate of change around work-life balance and flexibility that workplaces offer, particularly in the tech industry. We’ve always really enjoyed that. So for me, work is just a natural part of life. My routine, I swim in and out of work and life during the day, I drop my daughter at school, I get into the office, I pick her up from school, I get her dinner ready and in the bath, and then I’m back at work. And so I’m very fluid around my work-life balance. I guess the downside of that is sometimes it’s very hard to switch off, but I sort of live by two rules.

(27:00):

The first is sleep, I make sure I get enough sleep, that makes me a naturally happier person, so I make sure I’m in bed at a reasonable hour every night. And the other rule is I tend not to work on weekends, I’m happy to work as late as necessary during the week, but for me, weekends are really holy, it’s family time, it’s time spent with my daughter, with my parents. So I do make it a rule to try not to work weekends. Obviously, the rule is bendable, but as a general rule, it just keeps me healthy and balanced and not leaning too far into the work in the balance.

Barrie Seppings (27:37):

Tina, do you find that for yourself a little hard to switch off or are you like, close the laptop, you’re done?

Tina Semple (27:44):

No, I struggle with switching off. And I think I could also take Sonya’s advice about sleep, probably. I’d love to get some more sleep. No, I find it a little bit hard to switch off. Usually weekends I do make a conscious effort of switching off, often nighttime I do have to catch up on lots of things, but yeah, try to switch off on the weekends as much as I can. This just made me think about, I had a mentor at one point when I was pregnant with my first child, and at that time she said to me, she’s like, “Oh, maybe you should think about doing freelancing so that you can be there for your kids and be at school pick up,” et cetera. And I don’t think that’s the case anymore. With all the flexibility that is around, you don’t actually have to choose to go out on your own, you can still continue working with an agency and have that flexibility, which is great.

Barrie Seppings (28:34):

Tim, switching off, is that something that you do on the regular? Because we’re not seeing a ton of it, but clearly you do, you’ve got your family, you’ve got your balance away from the screen when you’re not on with us. How do you find that balance for yourself? Even though you’re probably always thinking about the business, because being a founder, that’s hard to balance.

Tim Sands (28:51):

Yeah, I think it’s just carving out time for yourself. Typically, for me that’s early in the morning when my kids are still asleep, because as soon as kids are up, life changes. So it’s just about booking time out to do the things that interest you and make you feel better as a person.

Barrie Seppings (29:06):

We also spoke with Elise Miller, who is head of ABM for ServiceNow across the EMEA region. And we were very interested to hear from Elise about what she does to maintain health and wellbeing, both mental and physical as she balances demands of a very high-powered job, managing a hybrid team, and also remote working herself.

Elise Miller (29:28):

I have a few tips I try to follow. So the first one would be a combination of office and home working. I’m a huge advocate of that and I think it’s a very personal choice. I think it’s great to be at the office and I try to prioritize days in the office when I have fewer meetings so I can actually spend more time interacting with people about all kinds of things, both work and non-work. The other one would be, and this could be both at home and at the office, just moving around, switching desks or places you sit. For those that work with me, they’ll find me working in my kitchen sometimes, I move into my office, I sit in the living room, I switch to a different desk or a different seat. I think it just clears your mind, helps you to look at things in a different way. So fresh seat, fresh perspective type of situation.

Barrie Seppings (30:18):

Tim, what are you doing to stay fit and healthy and active? Because there is the temptation to be just locked in and at your desk and on the keyboard all day.

Tim Sands (30:29):

I really enjoy going to the gym, and I think working from home actually is a motivator for that. Getting out of the house and seeing other human beings is a healthy thing.

Barrie Seppings (30:41):

And beyond the gym? We hear you’ve taken up a new hobby. You’re folding clothes?

Tim Sands (30:46):

Folding humans, or allowing humans to fold me.

Barrie Seppings (30:49):

What have you discovered?

Tim Sands (30:50):

It’s almost a cliché at the moment, but doing a lot of jujitsu, which I really love. It’s like learning a whole new language again, just while someone heavy lies on top of you.

Barrie Seppings (31:02):

Tina, what are you doing to stay sort of fit and healthy or clear your mind? You’re living out in the country, clearly part of the, the tree change is a big part of that. But what specifically are we doing out in Bathurst?

Tina Semple (31:15):

Well, I love going to the gym as well, and do quite a bit of running. I’ve got a lovely dog, I try to take Hugo out for walks every day. And also, we have a big amazing garden and that’s my, I love hanging out in the garden and doing things in there, so that’s how I clear my mind.

Barrie Seppings (31:32):

I remember Jorge from HPE was on the pod not too long ago, he’s a gardener as well. He just talks about the clarity of mind that it gives you and the peace and the calm. Is that something you find or is it a little bit more physical and strenuous as well?

Tina Semple (31:47):

Look, I think it’s both, but I think it’s also just being out, outside in nature, and also not really having to think. I think that’s probably part of it.

Barrie Seppings (31:56):

We were also fortunate enough to have Lis Walters from Ingram Micro on the Plugged In, Switched On podcast early this year. And she spoke to us about the trust and the responsibility that comes with managing a remote team.

Lis Walters (32:10):

One thing that came from the pandemic was, it showed that you’ve employed someone to do a job and you should trust them to do that job in any location that they’re working in, whether it be at home, whether it be offsite, somewhere else, whether it be in the office. And I think it really, the pandemic really showed that, that people can just get on and get their jobs done wherever they’re working. And I think that’s been a good thing, it’s been a good thing for everyone, people with small families, people with pets, people with elderly parents. It’s really given the opportunity for people to adapt and put family first, because I think that’s really important, and to be able to work flexible. Sometimes I might work very early in the morning and then log off earlier in the day, and if my team want to do that, I’m more than happy to do that for family responsibilities.

Barrie Seppings (33:03):

Tim, how have you developed that oversight and that balance between letting people have the flexibility, but making sure as their employer you’re getting from them what you need from them and what the business needs to generate revenue and survive and grow?

Tim Sands (33:19):

Again, it all comes down to people, and the type of people you hire. I think people self-select out too, so we’re pretty good up to 10 years of, through a screening process and the interview process, working out who’s going to be a good fit in a remote environment and then giving them a whole lot of autonomy and responsibility. And by and large, we’ve had very few issues. I think most people are self-motivated, just have it as an innate need to do a great job and be great at what they do. And as long as you’re hiring those type of people, the remote management is a non-factor.

Barrie Seppings (33:58):

In a traditional agency, you can invite the clients in, they can walk the floors, they can see the rows of desks, they can see tons of people. We’ve got, at Splendid, blue chip clients, Fortune 500 clients, really famous brands and global remits, but our clients are only ever going to see the few people that are on the Teams call. Do you ever get feedback from clients wondering if that’s all we’ve got or that’s all there is in terms of the people or the talent that we’ve got on the bench? And how do you address those concerns?

Tina Semple (34:30):

Yeah, we do get those kind of questions and I guess it is a concern. I think we do have lots of different people working across the businesses, there are a lot of people in the business that touch each client. But then what we also do, like we were alluding to before as well, is that we do try to catch up with the wider team and catch up with the clients with the wider Splendid team. In addition to that, like Tim was saying before as well, we do have a bench of project management, very talented, trusted people that we can also use to help scale up quickly when we need to.

Barrie Seppings (35:06):

Every agency, remote or not, struggles with having enough talent on board, being able to scale up for peak times, but also being able to access that specialist skills that you may not need 100% of the time. How’s your structure and agency model evolved? Talk to me about that core and bench talent model that you’ve developed over time.

Tim Sands (35:28):

Yeah. So I’ve obviously got a core team of FTEs across a number of disciplines, but we find that a lot of project work will spike, and that might be because a massive project come in or at a certain time of year, where we need to scale in order to deliver just the sheer number of campaigns that come through. So what over 10 plus years we’ve developed, a bench of high trust people that, again, we’ve worked with in previous lives and they have that B2B Tech expertise, which is so, so important to the services we deliver. So essentially it’s a large Rolodex of people we can call on who love to plug in. Again, they don’t want to work 40 hours a week, they want to work 20 hours a week. But that just gives us the ability to scale in terms of project management, strategy, client service, copywriting, and we use that to flex the resource pool.

Barrie Seppings (36:17):

Looking ahead, Tim, you’re about to take the remote working experiment to a whole new level. What are you planning for you and your family for 2025?

Tim Sands (36:28):

So we’ve always wanted to pack up, jump in a caravan and do the loop around Australia, so we’re doing that. We’re going to find out just how good Starlink is. I’ve heard it’s amazing, but we will be pushing its boundaries, I’d say. So yeah, I’ll be in a caravan going from beach side location across SA, WA, NT, but still working.

Barrie Seppings (36:53):

Wow. How long do you plan to be on the road for with your family?

Tim Sands (36:56):

About eight months. It’s going to be an adventure.

Barrie Seppings (36:58):

Tim Sands, Tina Semple, thank you for coming aboard the Plugged In, Switched On podcast and for showing us around the world of remote work as Blended sees it. We also heard from a lot of our guests that we talked to during the year, and there’s plenty of advice there that you can take away and use in your own roles.

(37:19):

Well, that was a special behind the curtains episode of the Plugged In, Switched On podcast where we took a look at how a fully remote agency actually works, for the staff, for the leadership, and for the clients. Thanks to those guests who took us behind the curtain of their own roles during the year, and also our special guest, Tim Sands, founder and MD of Splendid Group, and Tina Semple, client director of Splendid Group for Australia-New Zealand. Before I let them go, I asked Tim and Tina about their favorite movies of all time, and here’s what they told me. Tim, what’s your favorite movie? Tina, if you could watch one movie forever, what would it be?

Tina Semple (38:05):

Pulp Fiction.

Barrie Seppings (38:05):

Right. So why do you want to watch Pulp Fiction forever?

Tina Semple (38:07):

Only because of that dancing scene with Uma Thurman and John Travolta, it’s the best.

Barrie Seppings (38:16):

I have been Barrie Seppings in what has been a special behind the curtains episode of Plugged In, Switched On, a podcast about the conversations that matter in B2B Tech marketing. Hit subscribe in your pod helmet and you’ll hear us again automatically next month. If you’ve got this far in this episode, I think that means that you like us.

If so, give us a like, leave us a comment, tell us what you’ve enjoyed about the podcast, and certainly get in touch and tell us who you would like to hear from next in the interview chair, particularly if it’s you. Until next month. Thank you very much for having us in your ears. Plugged In, Switched On is generated by Splendid Group. Thanks to our executive producers, Ruth Holt and Anna Isabelle Canta.