Swim In As Many As You Can

My Out of the Pond moment wasn’t a single flash — it was a slow realisation that came from navigating new business across almost every type of environment. From start-up shops and mid-sized independents, through to working with intermediaries and now at the scale of Publicis Groupe — I’ve seen how growth operates at every level. Partially intentional, I wanted to see what enabled growth from start-up to enterprise and everything in between, because one day I’d have my own business, or I’d be running someone else’s and ‘how to grow a business’ was my biggest curiosity.

What I’ve learned, is that there is no single “right way” to win. The real magic comes from knowing which playbook to apply — and when to rewrite it entirely. A unique perspective I’ve gained for myself, and a lens I recommend trying to focus on.

In my time at smaller agencies, growth is visceral. It’s fast, gritty, personal — everyone’s in it. You learn how to hustle, how to create impact with zero resource, how to turn a pitch around in days and how to generate new new biz. But it can also be reactive and emotionally charged. You guys all know this.

Mid-sized businesses taught me structure and scale — building pipelines, creating replicable processes, balancing instinct with insight. Intermediaries added another layer: objectivity. You learn how clients buy, not just how agencies sell. And now, at Publicis, I see growth at an entirely different altitude — systemised, strategic, truly global.

The moment I truly stepped out of the pond was when I stopped seeing these as separate environments — and started treating them as a toolkits.

When you have the components you need, you can blend the entrepreneurial speed of independents with the sophistication and scale of a network and bring the pitch energy of a 20-person agency into an enterprise machine.

It wasn’t easy. Rewiring my ways of working across such different cultures takes time. But the result has been more authentic conversations, more creative routes to growth, and a more agile, human approach to pitching and converting.

My advice? If you want to truly master new business — get out of one pond and swim in as many as you can. Each one will teach you something different. The most effective growth practitioners (IMO) don’t just sell — they adapt, connect, facilitate and translate value in a way that feels right, no matter the stage or scale.

That’s what I’m striving for anyhow.