RWL044 Growing a Remote Team and Business with Expert James Haigh

Growing Remote Design Agency Success

Speaker 1

0:00

Hello everybody. It's Alex from the Remote Work Life podcast, where tech and marketing professionals with a shared interest in remote work come to learn from those who know the world of remote work best. And I have a great guest with me today. I have James Haig, who is a director of a multimedia design consultancy in the UK, based in the UK, a remote agency, and I just wanted to get James. I saw a video of him on LinkedIn talking about how the business is growing. So I just was really intrigued myself and I know that you'll be intrigued and I know, as I said before, that James has got a lot of insight, a lot of things that we can learn from him. So I knew I needed to have him on the podcast. So, James, you are very, very welcome.

Speaker 1

0:52

Thank you for joining me, Thanks for having me Excellent and, as I always do, as I usually do, I really want to know, james, about you, about, we Are Sweet as well. That's the name of James's business. So I'd like you, james, to talk me through your career, I suppose your career journey, and how you got to present day and linked up with Lou.

Speaker 2

1:18

Yeah, so really kind of fell into it I at an early age, sort of as a teenager. I never really kind of left the house and I just found myself on forums, kind of accidentally, learning HTML and PHP and JavaScript and things, and before I knew it I was kind of 16. I was self-taught and I had all of these kind of marketable skills. I was still a kid. I never really realized it was a marketable skill at the time. I ended up picking up a few kind of small website projects on the side and, of course, a 16 year old book 11 years ago. They were absolutely awful, um, but um realized then that I didn't really have the, the kind of creativity or the design skill set that were really required to make these things work properly. But I could code, um, so meanwhile Lou was working with somebody else.

Speaker 2

2:08

Um, lou is a creative. He doesn't have any kind of sort of coding ability. I'm sure he won't mind me saying that, um, but he's. He's very, very creative and a fantastic designer he had. He had previously linked up with a developer and they were kind of teaming up together. They brought me in as a kind of a kid to just do some stuff that they couldn't really, didn't really have time for just to kind of test me out. Um, they ended up having some creative differences and stopped working together, but by then we had actually had a few projects under our belt, so it was a very easy decision just to say, right, let's, let's, let carry on, let's just see where this takes us.

Speaker 2

2:46

I think we've got a really good combination of Lou having the design and the UX experience, with me being able to actually create this stuff. We worked together for about I guess about five years. Lou was working at his first job in London I was actually at uni at the time. We just worked on the side, just picking up projects here and there wherever we could. Through a combination of contacts and really good luck. I think we picked up what was our first kind of serious project with a company called IMG. We were asked to create the IMG Sport Video Archive, which is now known as IMG.

Speaker 1

3:22

Replay.

Speaker 2

3:24

So, as basically a couple of people in their early 20s meeting these people saying, right, we're going to create the Premier League Archive, the Wimbledon Archive, the Rugby World Cup Archive, we were both a bit like whoa, that's a big one to start with, isn't it? It really is, and that was our first big gig, really, and still one of our biggest to date. Right, you can't get much bigger than a company like IMG. We decided at this point we should probably kind of take this a bit more seriously. We, we incorporated the limited company. At this point, lou quit his job in central London. I actually left uni to start the business properly, couldn't really really had no choice but to take this opportunity. Since then, we ended up being introduced to other people in the sporting world, other federations and also those clients that I was working with at kind of 16, 17. Some of those are still around today. In fact, one of them has grown to be one of our biggest clients today, working together on that basis. Just the two of us for quite a while. And then our client said to us look, guys, we love what you do, but we need more of it. You're clearly so busy, you're so snowed under. We need more of you. So it was really a bit of a terrifying proposition, like Lou and I kind of working from our, you know, working remotely Back when working remotely was a stigma as well.

Speaker 2

4:49

I bet it was. Yeah, back when people thought working remotely meant that you weren't serious or weren't a proper business. We decided that we don't have the money, we don't have the inclination to get an office, so we took on our first full-time member of staff working remotely and and it was it was quite interesting for us to actually interview someone and I remember in the interview he said to us am I going to be like a contractor? Am I going to be freelance? Well, no, no, this, this is real. This we're a real business. You're going to be on the payroll. You're just going to be working from your home rather than an office. And since then we've grown the team a lot since then and where we are with the business at the moment is we've got a team of eight people all working remotely. Seven are in the UK, one is actually in Portugal of creating an agency that does work with really serious clients and has those kind of long-term relationships that we can really provide value, for I think those stigmas are still there with some people.

Speaker 1

5:53

when you say you work from home, they say, oh, you must have time to do this or you must have time to stick the food on and do some washing.

Speaker 1

6:02

I'm like, well, actually I, I have an office and I completely separate my office from my um, you know, my, my, uh, my chores at home, sort of thing. So yeah, there is still a stigma. But I guess back then, I think, because remote work now is so much more in the spotlight now than it was then, it's the stigmas are sort of being debunked. I suppose you could say so when did you employ your first other remote team member?

Speaker 2

6:30

He's been with us for about three years now, so Lou and I were operating just as the two of us for quite some time before we took on our first full-time employee. Yeah, he's been with us for about three years.

Speaker 1

6:41

Okay, and I'm intrigued as well, actually, why the name? We Are Sweet. Where did that come from?

Speaker 2

6:46

It's a long and very uninteresting story, if I'm honest. So even like 10 years ago, all of the good domains were taken, all of the good limited company names were taken, and Lou and I sat probably for about three days and we got to a point where we were just going through the dictionary and just opening pages. We kind of decided we liked the we are thing, so like we are something. We thought that was quite cool at the time, um, and we were just shouting out words honestly, we're doing this for days. We would come up with something we like check if the domain is available. So frustrating. And then someone in the room, um, just shouted sweet, we're like. Oh, we are, we are sweet, that could work is the domain available.

Speaker 2

7:28

We expected it to be gone, but it was there and that was it. That was it. We just didn't want to spend any longer thinking of company names, and we get a lot of people talking about it, though, I think it's fairly unique.

Speaker 1

7:41

Well, I think it's good when you get people talking about it, because it gives it has that certain amount of curiosity to it. But I mean, it tells me that you know we're in a good place, we know what we're doing. We're not. We know what we're all about. You know we deliver. That's what it says to me anyway.

Speaker 2

7:58

So yeah, that's brilliant, that's that's exactly what I wanted to say, so yeah, I like the name, I like it.

Speaker 1

8:05

So you've got eight in the team. You've got, um, you're all remote uk and portugal. Um, what is the? What's the? I suppose what's the makeup of your team, because I'm assuming that you know you've got designers, you've got developers, etc yeah, we're predominantly deaf.

Speaker 2

8:23

Um, so there's lou and I. We're directors. Uh, both of us are based in the southeast of the uk, so lou and I do see each other face to face probably a couple of times a week. We're always in and out of london meeting clients. Um, then we've got, um, we've got ash, we've got jake, we've got james full-time developers um, they're scattered across the uk. Um, they're really fantastic guys. They've really kind of got the whole um, the, the whole culture that we're trying to create, and they really get what we're doing. Um, we've got another james. So, yeah, you, you did count right. That is three Jameses, so affectionately known as JT. He's our project coordinator. He's our most recent hire.

Speaker 2

9:05

Lou and I found that we were doing so much of the business development, so much of the marketing, so much of the sales. We just didn't have time to coordinate projects and make sure things are happening on time. With web projects and systems, there are so many dependencies. There are so many kind of little answers that you need. You always need to chase the client, you always need to make sure that you've got absolutely everything you need for the project and, in all honesty, things were just slipping through. Lou and I weren't effective at it because we were trying to do too much. So we realized that we need someone whose sole responsibility is just to make sure that the machine works, that the machine is constantly delivering, that clients get chased and clients understand what's going on.

Speaker 2

9:44

So JT is a non-technical person, but we found that also to be really good, because as developers, and being one myself, I find that I often kind of when I'm testing my own work, I find that I just don't notice things that might be wrong or something might be wrong and I'll be like oh yeah, that's because of that thing in JavaScript and that's fine. But a non-technical person will say, yeah, but that's wrong, you need to fix that, which is absolutely brilliant. Then we've got Nick. He's a non-exec director. We've been working with Nick for a couple of years. He basically just we meet up with Nick once a month or so. We'll talk to Nick about where we are. We joke that he's a bit of a kind of a business therapist.

Building a Remote Team Culture

Speaker 2

10:29

Lou and I just get our thoughts out in the open. He's a bit of a coach, he's a bit of a mentor and he's really helped us to get from where we were maybe three years ago with one, maybe two full time people, to where we are now. So Nick has been absolutely brilliant. And then we've got Helen, who's our part time bookkeeper. She's the one that's in Portugal. I can't actually remember the last time I've seen Helen face to face, but she, she's absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 1

10:58

uh, she's semi-retired, she does bookkeeping for a couple of small businesses, um, and just has it fit around her lifestyle, which is perfect for us sounds good to me, and I I mean again, remote work is is the main theme of this, and you've got, it seems to me and I'm sure this is not the case, but you've got, you've put together a team of eight pretty sort of um, is it? I mean, I'm sure there's been friction there, I suppose, when because obviously hiring is is not an easy thing to do, but it seems like you've, you've built something and you're building something that's very, uh, you know, is delivering on what you, what you wanted um is you. You put together a team of people who work together well as well, I'm assuming as well, because you obviously getting all these, these clients through as well. So, from your respect, uh, james, what effect has has remote working had on on your life? I mean, I don't know if you could speak for your team as well, but what, yeah, yeah, um.

Speaker 2

11:59

So so for me, I'll be honest, I've never really known anything different. Um, I I guess I'm I'm kind of fortunate that this is something I maybe take for granted. Um, in my sort of 10-year career, I've never I've never worked for somebody, I've never worked in an office, so I've just kind of had to figure it out. Um, I remember back at uni, before Lou and I landed the big project, we were still working on things on the site. So I was working on a degree and also working with Lou being at uni, my desk was in my bedroom and I found it so difficult to switch off. I was just constantly stressed I'd be laying in bed just looking at my computer, thinking I need to get that work done. So for me I found that having an office like yourself is so, so important, so that when I'm done in the evening I close the door and then I'm kind of back home psychologically. It's really, really important. Lou has his home office in his lounge. He doesn't struggle with that like I do, and so I think everyone treats it slightly differently.

Speaker 2

12:57

Everyone has their own way of kind of working more effectively remotely. We've got someone, our first employee. He was a new dad when he joined us. So it worked really well for him because he was able to help with childcare but also still able to hold down a full-time job and still sort of do what he wants to do. We've got someone who plays in a brass band. He often has music lessons, sometimes during the day. He sometimes has gigs where he'll need to kind of be away on a weekday Absolutely fine, like crack on. We're so happy for people to kind of have a life. I don't want people to work for. We Are Sweet and think that they can't do other things. And yeah, we've got someone who plays football on Monday afternoon. Yeah, absolutely fine. We really encourage people to have a life and do things as well as working for us.

Speaker 1

13:49

So you know, in that sense, I mean, I think a lot of people like remote work because of that flexibility, obviously, like we all get our work done, we all have our plans and our schedules inside of work, we get it done. But it sounds like you're very much into supporting the extracurricular things that that people do, and parenting actually also is another common thread that comes into the reasons why people take up remote work, and you're supporting that as well, which is, it sounds wonderful to me and yeah, absolutely you've got to, and the whole culture we're trying to create here is that we're all part of the same team.

Speaker 2

14:28

You know, like it's not Lou and I cracking a whip, it's not anything like that. We're just all trying to achieve really good stuff. We're just trying to deliver really great projects for really great clients and just keep everyone happy, and that's the team included. We've got a really well, we're only a small team anyway, but we've got a flat structure. So if anyone wants to shout up about something anyone's got any opinion on how we could maybe do things better we really encourage it. We want everyone to feel like a core part of the team because they are.

Speaker 1

15:02

And do you get?

Speaker 2

15:02

I mean, you mentioned you're meeting meeting lou, did you say? Uh, every two, every couple of weeks? Uh, it depends. It depends sort of like we'll have weekly stints where we're sort of in london every single day. We're meeting clients every day, or we've got strategy planning sessions every day. Um, I don't think I've seen him at all this week, though. No, I don't think we are due to see each other this week at all, so it really depends on what's on at the time in terms of projects, sales meetings, planning sessions. It's really sporadic.

Speaker 1

15:28

And tell me I mean IMG that one's a pretty impressive starting client. Really good, that's one of my favourites, actually, in terms of business-wise what. Well, what's your client base looking at right now? Do you have clients similar to IMG or is it just a mixture?

Speaker 2

15:46

We've got clients across many, many different industries and some clients kind of question us on that as well. They say, well, how have you honed in on a specific industry?

Speaker 2

15:55

But I think it's really good that we're across many the lessons we learn from different industries. We can then apply it to others. So, for example, we work with the biggest home care franchisor in the UK. In fact, they're the client that were working with me back when I was 16, 17. We've grown with them. They're absolutely amazing now. Now, um, so we work in home care, we work in school, um. We, we work in the charity sector. We went to Rwanda, um, just just seeing what the UGIS Trust are up to with their peace building activities, that was really interesting. We work with a yoga studio, we. We work with a facilities management company, um, and we do everything from kind of web and landing pages all the way through to full integrated business systems with these guys. But, yeah, what we learn from home care, some of the ways that they deal with maybe their incoming leads we can then apply that to sport. We can then apply that to charity or elsewhere.

Speaker 1

16:54

The principles of good design, good ux, good development really can carry across any industry no, it's like I mean, it's a wonderful story and it sounds like I mean we're going to come on to this a bit later, but it sounds like you're in a period as well of of of growing yourselves as well. Um, in terms of it sounds like there's some changes in the foot, in the in the offing, so I'm going to talk about that in a little while. But one question actually that's just sprung to mind, um, because there's lots of people within the remote, like wildlife community who who are managers themselves, um, and or they are setting up their own businesses or, you know, in the, in the startup phase of their business, um, and the question that I get asked quite a lot is is about business development and getting clients through. How, what's your approach to business development?

Speaker 2

17:47

that's just a really good and it does it does kind of link into what we're talking about with growing as well. And I'll be honest, it's all been completely organic. We've've been so, so lucky. Until about two or three months ago we were proud maybe wrongly as well to have said that we've never spent a penny on marketing. That's changed now. But, yeah, it's all been completely organic.

Growing Remote Team, Hiring and Documentation

Speaker 2

18:10

And by organic I don't necessarily mean going to things like BNI meetings or those breakfast mornings, but by organic I mean we've worked with companies like IMG, atp, media, homestead, senior Care, the sort of really big players in their industry, and just our name has been passed around and I guess we're really fortunate to have had those initial kind of clients come to us and be able to sort of tell those stories about those success stories. We're now at a point where we're trying to grow the business. We are growing the business. Our team has doubled in size in the last year. We're still getting those organic referrals and we're still working with those fantastic clients.

Speaker 2

18:50

But we found that in order to keep the machine moving and keep new work coming in, keep the pipeline looking healthy, we've started doing things like the LinkedIn video that you saw and like sort of sponsored posts. There's a lot more content marketing going on as well. So, yeah, to answer your question, very, very organic up until very, very recently, and we're finding that the results are really interesting from the video and the content that we're putting out um, it will never, ever lead to somebody saying hey guys, I'd like to give you x amount of money to do this, it's all. It's always the network in the, the sort of creating, creating sort of relationships with people and understanding them and them understanding you.

Speaker 1

19:32

it's always about the long game and lou, I think, mentioned something in a post. I think it was a post that I read I can't remember if it was on your website or if it was on LinkedIn. He said something along the lines of you're taking to a larger market and and and scaling up what. What does he mean by that and what? What are you guys planning?

Speaker 2

19:51

um, so I, I guess we, we need more clients. Who doesn't right? We're always looking, looking for more interesting opportunities so that we can do what we've done for people so far on a bigger level, for more people, for bigger clients. We want to grow our team. We never want to be a team of sort of 50, 100 people. I think we're going to be fairly happy when we're sort of 15 max no-transcript.

Speaker 1

20:38

I think it was Lou, actually, who might mention this. You've been documenting over the last two years certain aspects of your business. Could you tell us more about that as well?

Speaker 2

20:48

Yeah, and we are so not done, we are so far from being finished. So I guess when it was Lou and I, everything was in our head. We never really had to write anything down.

Speaker 1

20:59

Lou would deal with what he was dealing with.

Speaker 2

21:00

I would deal with what I was dealing with. We'd catch up to make sure everything's good, all brilliant. When Jake joined us, there was so much in my head and in Lou's head that we needed we needed to bring jake on board, and they needed to understand how we do things, our coding standards, how we talk to clients, what our process looks like. Um, when it was just jake, it was really easy. We just sat in a room for a couple of days and he just absorbed that information.

Speaker 2

21:23

But as we've grown and we've taken sort of four more people on over the last year or so, we found that I I don't I'm not necessarily effective having that conversation so so many times and and in the world of development as well, there are so many intricate things it could be down to why have you used that particular interface on that class or something like that, which I'm never, probably not even going to remember, but certainly never even going to have a chat with somebody about what we're onboarding them. Our approach is to write down as much as possible, whether it's company process, whether it's sales process, whether it's our brand toolkit, and make those resources available to people and share as much information within the company as possible. So when somebody new joins, yes, we have an onboarding process, but when they have specific questions about specific things, I can point them towards the documentation. If the documentation is incomplete, we will complete it. Quite a lot of the time I will ask them to do it because they have more knowledge on it than me at that point.

Speaker 2

22:27

I think when you work in an office it's very easy to just go to someone's desk and ask a question and then that question kind of gets lost. No one else knows the answer to that question, because that's just a conversation between two people we really want to avoid that here at. We are sweet and we want to make it so. Knowledge and information is available to everyone in the business, and everything is across every project as well. Everything is available to absolutely everybody, except for the, you know, the things that need to be sensitive.

Speaker 1

22:56

Yeah, and it's, it's, it's. It's important, like you said, documentation and making sure that everybody knows. I suppose you're all going down the same sort of pathway, doing things to a similar standard, to similar sort of well, just adhering to similar standards. But the fact that you've got every you're sort of getting everybody else involved with this, with this documentation, makes them feel as though they have that you know, they're really sort of uh, involved in what's going on and they have a stake in what you're doing, so that that it sounds brilliant to me. So, um, you've taken on eight people so far. I'm always interested in the because one thing, that one question that people and when I say people I mean hiring managers of remote businesses, even CEO level they're all trying to think of ways to attract people. They all have their own, I guess, challenges when it comes to attracting people. What's your process when you're hiring, and have you had any sort of big challenges yourself when it comes to that?

Speaker 2

24:04

Hiring is probably our biggest challenge. It's really really tough. We used to do it ourselves. We had a few kind of recruiters reach out to us but really, in all honesty, all they did was just throw cvs us and see what stuck. Um, they didn't really get what we were about. They didn't get the remote thing. They didn't get that. We're really trying to be serious about this and working with really really good clients despite the fact we're remote, as if that's even a thing.

Speaker 2

24:33

So, after some fairly frustrating experiences with recruiters, lou and I decided to just do ourselves, with mixed results. We interviewed quite a lot of people. A lot of them didn't get what we were about, didn't get the culture, didn't get what we were trying to create. And don't get me wrong, we've got our great team now, but there have been other people come and go along the way as well. I mean, we've not just arrived here painlessly. It's been quite a long, painstaking process.

Speaker 2

25:05

However, I must say that when it comes to recruiting developers, we found an absolutely fantastic recruiter who completely gets us, completely gets our business. Fantastic recruiter who completely gets us, completely gets our business, does a lot of remote hiring as well, and his approach is a bit different to other recruiters we've worked with. He won't send us a candidate unless he knows that they are the candidate for us. So rather than getting 10 CVs through a day, it might take him three weeks to give us one CV. But actually the hires we've made from him have been the people the only people he said, the only people he sent we've taken on. They've been absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 2

25:41

Um, and speaking to him about the recruitment process as well, um, he does a lot of remote hiring, but, but, but not. It's not exclusively remote. He does, he does, he does recruit for a lot of office-based companies, and something he said to me which really resonated was if I'm talking to a candidate and all they talk about is the fact it's remote, and they talk about the fact they can work from their bed, in their pajamas or anything like that, if, if they, if they mention anything like that and really make a big deal out of it, then they're not for you. Um, the, the people that we've taken on from from james the recruiter, are people that have said yeah, that's great, um, but can you tell me more about the role please? Um, and they're the people that have actually um found remote working most effective for them yeah, it's, it's again.

Speaker 1

26:31

It's one of those things that I hear a lot a number of times from from people like yourself, james, is that people again, it's this whole stigma of remote work, I think, where they immediately in their mind, they just think about, like you said, working at home in their pajamas and, yeah, you know rather than the actual culture of your business, your mission, you know the clients that you have, you know where you're going to be in the next x number of years, what your ambitions. That they don't think about those things initially. It's just, oh, remote work. I'd love to do that you know, exactly.

Remote Team Management and Culture

Speaker 1

27:04

It's not the way to go. So I'm glad you reiterated that message, um, and in terms of okay, so you have a recruiter who introduces you to people, but then from your standpoint and you talked about culture as well you're building this culture. I don't know if you're documenting any parts of your culture and all that sort of thing, but how do you identify people who you think are going to really sort of thrive with? We Are Sweet.

Speaker 2

27:36

I think it's really a cultural thing. Um, I I mainly deal with recruiting developers, so as, as far as I'm concerned, if, if you pass the tests and if I look at the code and it's good and and you'll kind of answer all the technical questions correctly, I'm happy with that person as a developer, um. But then it really comes down to culture. It comes down to understanding that, yes, it's a remote team, but it's, but it's it's real per se, like we're a serious company. Um, it's also understanding that we need to pull together, um, and yeah, you might be able to have Monday afternoon off, but if you've got a deadline on Friday, you need to meet that deadline. It's about understanding that we're all working towards the same goal and actually the people we've taken on in fact everybody this is their first remote role. So everybody's come from that kind of really, really sort of highly structured, infantised sort of office environment, and some people have kind of dealt with it in different ways as well. We've got a couple of people that really just want to work nine till five and that's fine. We've got someone who sometimes shows up at 11am, sometimes shows up at 6am. I've no idea why. It's really not my problem. As long as the work gets done done, I'm completely happy with it. Yeah, people definitely mold their own experience when they're working remotely. I think it's sometimes tricky to identify how that's going to play out as well, especially if you're hiring people that have come from office based roles. They don't really know anything other than the nine till five. So some people kind of they really kind of go for the whole flexibility thing and like on week one they're like great, I can start at midday and I can finish at 9pm. Normally it's not really. It doesn't end up being quite that extreme. We're all on at roughly the same time each morning, with a couple of exceptions, and we all finish roughly the same time in the evening as well. I think as a leader, it's really important to lead by example as well.

Speaker 2

29:42

I had a stint quite recently where I was working far too many hours in the day. I was on before everyone and I was off after everyone else, and I thought I really need to put a stop to this. I don't want the team thinking that that's what we do and we are sweet. It was just purely the fact that I had personally taken on way more than I could handle and I was dealing with that in the only way I knew how, which was just get it done. But actually now I'm at a much more sensible point for me personally, where I'm yeah, I'm starting between eight and nine and I'm finishing between five and six, which is good for me. It's how I work. I don't want the team seeing Lou and I, or other members of the team, online all hours of the day. I don't want them thinking that that's what we expect from them.

Speaker 1

30:24

It's not and, um, obviously managing the team is something that, as it's as the team grows, becomes, I guess, more of a challenge for you as well. Um, I mean, it always helps when you find the right person, because I suppose much of remote work, as you've alluded to, is self-managing. But are there aspects of how you are, there things that you do, tools that you use to sort of manage your team?

Speaker 2

30:53

Yeah, so different people respond to different things as well, and again, even more so remotely, I think. I mean we've got one person in particular, absolutely fantastic developer. But I'm not surprised if I don't get a message back from him within maybe an hour or two after messaging him. And that's not because he's not there or because he's skiving off. That's probably because he's got Slack set to DND and he's just so focused on what he's doing. And fantastic, like Slack said to DND, and he's just so focused on what he's doing. And fantastic, like, why should I interrupt you from the work you're doing for me? Like, absolutely, people want to be managing different ways. Some people need a bit more hand-holding than others, which is absolutely fine. Our project coordinator has been really good at this because he has a management background as well. So he's come in and he's actually learned about how everyone works and how to manage them most effectively. He knows what the deadlines are, he knows what the requirements are and he's been really effective at doing that.

Speaker 2

31:49

In terms of other things we do to manage the team, we try and meet up as regularly as possible. So the core we call it, the production team, the designers and the developers and the coordinator. Um, we're the production team are based in the uk, um, so we'll normally meet up it's normally london, but we have been to other places. Um, it will just be a day thing, it will be during the week. Um, meet up, do a fun activity like junkyard golf or something like that. Um, we'll go out for a couple of drinks, um, and and and. Just just see each other face to face, shake hands and just get to know each other as like human beings rather than just people behind a screen.

Speaker 2

32:31

Um, because when you're talking, like talking about software, we use slack for im, we use mondaycom for some internal processes, we use basecamp for client comms, we use OneDrive for sharing documents.

Speaker 2

32:43

You know, we use all the tools, all of the cloud-based stuff that should be used, but it's very easy to look at a Slack window and all you're seeing is text and a little avatar of someone and kind of forget that there's a person there. So that's why we find it really important to have these team meetups and not just internally within the team as well, even to meet with clients. When I'm just reading somebody's email, I kind of forget that there's a person there and there's a real kind of a business objective that we're trying to achieve together with that client. So, similarly with clients, we try and meet clients as much as possible possible. We, we like, we get invites to their christmas parties and their conferences and we always go um, even if there's not a direct business outcome, just because you need to see those people you, you need to understand who you're working with. There's a real personal element to it well.

Speaker 1

33:30

You've answered my next question actually as well, because it's it sounds like you know obviously your team is, is naturally you as well, as a leader, are naturally inclined to work remotely, because you know you've got those aspects of meeting and socializing, and not just with your clients, but with your um, with your team as well, and managing people based on on how they like to be managed as well, rather, rather than just a one way of doing things. So sounds good, and if you're listening to this well, I know you're listening to this Well I think it's something that just to really really take on board as a manager that you can't manage people, everybody in the same way. You have to keep in touch with your team, you have to keep in touch with your clients, your team. You have to keep in touch with with your clients and you can't just have a head down mentality when it comes to work. You have to be, you know, have to have your eyes open to what's going on around you and opportunities and and growth and all that sort of thing. So it's all great there from James.

Speaker 1

34:34

And one question I always ask, james, because I was speaking to Nick Francis, who's the CEO of Help Scout and he was telling me about one of the most unusual places that he had worked in and I think he mentioned it was either Honolulu or Hawaii. One of those two places? Hawaii, I think it was yeah, because he likes surfing. Hawaii one of those two places. Hawaii, I think it was yeah, because he likes surfing. I don't know if you've had any unusual places that you've worked in or different places that have to be unusual.

Speaker 2

35:07

Yeah, I guess one of the most unusual has to be Rwanda. I think I mentioned earlier that we work with Aegis Trust, a charitable organisation in Rwanda, so they flew us out last year. We had just this week packed full of meeting, meeting everybody, just seeing seeing the work they're doing firsthand, which was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2

35:27

I ended up on a in a kind of rooftop restaurant cafe area with my laptop about 3 pm local time and just on Slack with with one of our guys here who was managing a national website rollout um, and I was here just supporting, just just kind of being there. Um, he was doing all the work but I I was sort of, yeah, yeah, just kind of being there and supporting him from, yeah, a rooftop cafe restaurant in romanda, which was pretty cool well, I can't beat that.

Future Growth and Expansion

Speaker 1

36:01

I can't beat that. I'm working on it though, I'm working on it. But it's been great to speak to you though, james, and likewise thank you. What I want to know quickly before you go is what's in store, anything in store that we should know about? You think with uh, we are sweet at all, or?

Speaker 2

36:16

is is really what we said. We're taking that approach to a wider audience. We've doubled in size over the last year. We want to carry on doing that. We want to be building the most robust, the most scalable, the most effective web platforms and systems for the biggest clients as well. So we're out there looking for those projects and we're also making sure that the team is there to to effectively deal with them excellent and I think you should go and have a look at we are sweetcouk.

Speaker 1

36:48

If you are thinking about your next multimedia design uh development project, have a look. Um, and not just that, you know, just just take in what. What uh, james james haig of we are sweet is doing what lou is doing as well. Thank you so much, james, and thanks, alex I'll be keeping in touch to see what you're doing in the future nice one thanks very much.