How do you build a thriving team and happy clients using DISC personality profiling?

Victoria Usher is CEO and Founder of the multi-award-winning B2B tech PR consultancy Gingermay. She’s been running the global consultancy for 16 years.

In this episode, Victoria shares how she:

• Has a senior team member meet 1-to-1 with each client every month, contributing to impressive long-term client retention
• Uses seven core competencies that all team members self-score against every three months
• Sent her team to acting lessons to help them put on a professional mask, set their body language and use the correct micro-expressions
• Coaches the team on DISC profiling so everyone understands each other’s personality types and communication styles
• Profiles clients’ DISC profiles, matches them with similar team profiles and tailors communications accordingly
• Uses DISC to put people into roles that align with their strengths and core motivations

Victoria is a passionate advocate for boosting emotional intelligence and self-awareness across her team - and it’s working, with client NPS scores at their highest ever levels.

How do you transition from a full-time YouTuber to running a 100-person agency?

Mike Craddock is Co-Founder & CEO of the social creative agency NewGen. He’s been running the business for 10 years and leads a team of 100 people across the UK, New York, and Paris.

In this episode, Mike shares how he:

• Instils the mantra “Slow down to speed up”, after growing the agency too quickly at the expense of quality in the early days
• Has a ‘F**K It Bucket,’ a monthly pot of money the team can spend however they want to support current or new clients
• Pushes responsibility down by creating multi-disciplinary teams to solve business problems and drive initiatives
• Challenges account teams to take a new initiative to a client at least once every 3 months, and share what they’ve done differently every 2 weeks
• Ensures senior people have 10–20% free capacity to think and bring proactive ideas to clients
• Runs a GG NewGen Slack channel where people praise each other and react using custom emojis representing their values

More recently, Mike has made a number of senior hires to take the business to the next level, engaging the wider team throughout the hiring process so everyone understands the new roles.

How do you reinvent the traditional agency model?

Samppa Vilkuna is Founder & CEO of the creative company, Superson. He leads a small in-house team alongside more than 400 specialists worldwide.

In this episode, Samppa shares how he:

• Set up the business to be the Airbnb of the agency world - the world’s best creative agency without a single creative person
• Resources from a massive pool of freelancers, so there’s never a conflict of interest in having to sell his team’s skills to clients
• Hires freelancers based on skillset, location, and personal interests - so he can always provide the best possible team for clients
• Has processes to ensure newly formed teams rapidly become high-performing
• Creates a sense of belonging for freelancers so they feel part of the Superson community
• Truly collaborates with clients, co-creating work alongside them and eliminating the need to sell it in

Samppa used to work in-house. Frustrated by his suppliers, he set up his own agency with a flexible talent pool - so the team is always the best possible fit for clients’ needs.