Six years in: how to survive running a business

It has been three tough, hilarious, brilliant and exhausting years since we published my ramblings on what I’d learned in three years of running my own business. To my continuing astonishment, that piece is still one of the most popular features we’ve posted.

I vividly remembered writing it at my kitchen table, in the flat I still rent, feeling a bit ridiculous offering advice when I still struggled with so many things week-on-week. It felt almost fraudulent to publish something like that when I didn’t have it all worked out myself, but so many people were asking me how I’d survived as a freelancer and set up a business that I felt compelled to try to articulate the few things I’d learned in the process.

Inevitably, things have changed since then. The business has grown in size and scope and influence, but I still get asked the exact same things. How do I keep it going? How do I keep myself going? What’s the secret to staying sane when your name is on the office door?

I can save you time right now by telling you I don’t know the answers to these. Obviously resilience plays a part, but  I don’t fully understand how or why it works; it just does. I have, however, picked up a handful of insights in the last three years that I think are worth adding to that initial list. I hope some of it is helpful and if not, please do tell me what might actually be helpful and I’ll see what I can do – I’m much better solving problems than I am filling blank pages.

So here we go…

CHANGE IS YOUR FRIEND

We all know that change is often terrifying, frustrating and unnerving, but it can also be exciting, inspiring and, ultimately, a good thing. During the last six years, the thing I have had to come to terms with the most as a business owner is the general lack of control that you have over, well, everything. So much work needs to go into chasing the invoices you sent on time; so much time needs to be devoted to making sure you have wiggle room around projects and deadlines due to people having their own ways of working and unexpected things going on (weather/transport/emotional lives). But you know what? Every moment of transition and transformation that I have felt like despairing over in the last few years, I can see now, with the benefit of hindsight, was always a trigger for positive change. Losing clients as they’ve taken their PR in-house, losing a much-loved employee to an exciting new overseas job (hi Dorothy), or not getting a project you wanted – all these waves of hassle and heartbreak are inevitable. You just have to accept them and remember that 'as one door closes, another opens’ (thanks Yinka). Learn to let it go, or suffer in the long-term. Don’t try to know the future, just go with the flow, understand that tomorrow will be different and try to be flexible enough to cope with what comes.

BEING KIND IS NOT NAIVE

The number of times I’ve been called naive, young and short-sighted because I don’t overcharge people, pay a lot for a lovely office for my staff, offer really good holiday leave, work with lots of low- and no-budget social enterprises, and don’t take on massive white-labelled dull ‘money’ projects. I’d be absolutely minted if I got a pound for every lecture by well-meaning old-school marketers who told me to grow up and charge more  – perhaps they’re all eager to keep the magical value of what we do super high because they’ve got away with it for so long.

As a business, we’re getting there, building our networks, our confidence, and our understanding of how the creative industries are evolving, and although we have raised our rates as we’ve got bigger and better, we haven’t made them stupid. We know that we could stop working with a charity and take on a massive corporation instead – and we often get the opportunity –  but we also know that balance is everything, and money isn’t. When we have the capacity to help someone achieve their goals in a space they might not feel that welcome or comfortable, then that’s a really good decision. Yes, this approach means we don't make as much money as we perhaps could; but it hasn’t run our business into the ground. It turns out you can make moral choices and run a company at the same time. Who knew?

YOU DEFINE YOUR SUCCESS, NO ONE ELSE

I spoke in detail about this on the wonderful NTS Radio podcast In Good Company by Otegha Uwagba, back in January. I don’t run my business like the average PR company because I have zero interest in working for the average PR company. At Zetteler, we're small and nimble, we care about every client, we work in a nice space, we treat everyone the same and we have a happy team and happy clients. That feels like success. If someone looks at our profit margins and tells me they think I’m doing it all wrong, they simply don’t understand what success means to me and how long-term I’m looking. Our turnover this year could have easily been double what it was, but we invested heavily into new team members, paid way beyond statutory for our first person on maternity leave, helped create something beautiful in Tanzania with human rights charity Standing Voice, worked with loads of other social enterprises, emerging designers and brands with little cash. Of course I want to make a profit, but I also want to make sure that we never muck about with our core objectives: to be useful to those who really need us; to be inspiring to people outside our immediate circle; and to push the boundaries of what we and our industry can do. All that comes at a cost  – but with a great reward.

IT’S OK TO BE UNPOPULAR

I’m all for having a great time at work – being inspired, laughing your head off numerous times a day – but we’re not here for a laugh. This is my livelihood, my savings, my every waking hour (more or less), my safe space. Most of all, it’s my reputation – and I don’t take kindly to people fucking about with that. If you don’t want to work, then cool, bye. If you do, then come on in and let’s get on with making things better and people’s lives easier, more thrilling and more meaningful.

I used to loathe giving negative feedback, but after being an employer for coming up to four years, I’ve relaxed into it. I know that I improved by having brave bosses tell me what’s what, and, however I felt at the time, I’m grateful to them that they didn’t put making me like them above making me better. I try to do the same with my team – no flattery or sugarcoating. It’s not always an easy path, but if it’s a toss up between ‘being popular’ and ‘having integrity’, the choice is a no-brainer, and I think (hope) my team understand that.

YOUR BUSINESS IS YOUR TEAM

You might make the budgetary decisions and have the final say on a few things, but on an average day the boss of your business most certainly isn’t you. I’m the founder and managing director of Zetteler, but it’s my people (my team and my clients) that dictate when I get paid and determine how productive my office is. They’re the people I’m here to serve. That’s possibly  the funniest part of running a ‘successful’ business – you’re at the very end of everything. If everyone else is OK, I’m OK. If anyone isn’t, I’m not either. The best thing is to realise that you hired those people because they’re great. They lit something up inside you when you met and you agreed to pay them tens of thousands of pounds a year to come aboard – so let them. What is most valuable about us is how involved everyone is in everything. You can pretty much pick any member of the team and ask them about one of our sometimes 40+ live clients (across social, editorial, PR, marketing, consultancy and film) and they’ll know who they are, what we do for them and whom to speak to. I think that’s a marvel. It could be dismissed as inefficient in the traditional model of clocking hours and humans for projects and deliverables, but the feedback, support, insight, access and activation each and every client gets is unmatched. You get 10+ brains on your brand with us, not some junior exec on their third day. That keeps us relevant, keeps us united and keeps us in business.

…and that’s it, I could go on all day (as anyone who knows me knows). There’s 1,000 things to learn every single day running a business, both about yourself, the people around you, the logistics of it all, the world… but it’ll all change by tomorrow, so let’s see.

I read over my 10 Things I’ve Learned Being a Freelancer feature and although some of the language is probably not what I’d use today, I stand by the content. I’d definitely still advise you to tell the truth every single day, to not pester people for their brains too much, to pay people fairly and as swiftly as possible, to choose your people wisely and to stop, have a look around and be really proud of yourself for giving it a shot and surviving another day.

It’s 9:44pm. I’m at my desk. It’s dark and late and it’s been a really big week (it’s only Tuesday). Tomorrow is even bigger but I just took a long slow look around and I can’t believe this is working. We’re here in this lovely massive room in a beautiful block in De Beauvoir, my surname is on the door, there are 10 desks around me occupied (though not right now, thankfully) by people who I am genuinely glad to spend my days with. There’s music on, it’s warm, the desk lights are a-glow and I feel very lucky to be a part of it all.

Thanks to everyone who made this all possible. I learn new things every day, and every couple of years I’ll try to gather a few of those together in the hope they’re useful to you.

Sabine x