Cygnus' Managing Partner Marcus Swift discusses his first two years after leaping across the pond from corporate to lead an award winning Creative Agency. A true duck out of water experience.
I make no apology for the use of metaphorical idioms, it’s always created some fun and helped me drive motivation within my teams. I don’t take life too seriously, which has been useful throughout my career. Elaine Swift , my wife and business partner, loves ducks so a little nod to her in this blog title. Thank you to Elaine for her love and fantastic support whilst I’ve made this transition away from the corporate world.
Nearly thirty years immersed in FMCG and B2B, working for great companies like Dairy Crest est, Procter & Gamble , GSK and UCC Coffee UK and Ireland Coffee, I’ve always held product related Commercial roles - selling Mach 3 Razors, Duracell Batteries, Sensodyne Toothpaste, and lots of coffee machines and coffee. All that changed when I decided on a complete change of career to lead and transform one of our own businesses. CYGNUS was in recovery from the pandemic and it was critical that one of the shareholders grasped the business to lead the transition and take it to the next level in our own hands.
I don’t mind admitting to being a little vulnerable in my first few weeks at Cygnus, especially the first 1-1’s with the team and meeting our clients for the first time.
As a completely new Managing Partner in our Creative and Digital agency, I was for sure a “duck out of water” and was about to face a unique set of challenges on a new journey.
The first challenge was the obvious gap in industry knowledge in the creative and digital sector. Understanding the intricacies of the industry, including trends, technologies, and best practices, was a little overwhelming initially, but for sure, I got a grip of this quickly and with the help of my newly formed senior leadership team (SLT) it wasn’t long before I was immersed in the reality and learnings of day to day agency life. A number of years as Category Director at GSK had shown me the power of insight and using it correctly can absolutely give brands and companies a competitive edge. One thing for certain is that the sector changes constantly, so navigating this effectively was crucial to making sure the business could add value to our clients and help them achieve their goals and out-perform their competitors.
The second was to establish a good rapport and credibility amongst my new team, clients, and industry peers. I jumped into the trenches with the team and got really close to our clients. Listening to the senior team and regular 1-1’s with the wider team, also learning what our clients needed was key. I’m sure the team would say we have mutual respect for each other, coupled with trust and a desire to do our best for our clients everyday.
The next challenge was managing complex creative and digital projects that involve multiple stakeholders, tight deadlines, and changing requirements was interesting to say the least! Put simply, balancing creativity with the technical requirements of projects, whilst ensuring project success is the “holy grail” in an agency. Projects can be complex and very different client by client but never losing sight of a great client experience is key. Getting my head around selling time, not physical products, was very different. From talking to my new peers I learned it’s easy to lose money on projects quickly so the challenge of managing utilisation and profitability kept me awake at night in the early days.
With so many sectors struggling to recruit, talent acquisition was a serious challenge and our agency was definitely not immune from this however with a new strategy and a clear vision for Cygnus, we succeeded in attracting new recruits. Our values, which we’ve brought to life and live by daily as a team, contributed to our strategy of driving up people's engagement and in turn supported the need to attract new talent.
This move made an immediate, positive impact and we started the journey of building a solid team. I personally like to join the interview process, not really from a technical perspective but more from a cultural one. Also, we’ve worked hard to support each other as a team and to develop the team which has helped raise the bar across the business. We’ve managed to build an amazing team capable of delivering truly innovative award-winning work and at the same time keeping the team engaged, their feet on the ground and most of all, having fun and always remembering that family comes first!
I’ve had a lot of senior sales roles in my career, and one thing I can stand behind is if you can’t build relationships at all levels with customers and clients, you will never be successful. In this sector, it’s no different, why would it be? Developing strong client relationships based on trust, understanding, and effective communication is vital to succeed. As a newcomer, establishing rapport with clients and understanding their needs was crucial. I’ve always loved the client-facing elements in any job I’ve had, so it's enjoyable for me as I regard myself as a bit of a people person. I’ve listened hard (and continue to do that everyday) to what our clients are saying and we’ve integrated that feedback into our client-facing plans and contact strategies. Every client has a detailed joint business plan and we have formal reviews quarterly to review progress and discuss opportunities. Some of our clients are now becoming friends which is amazing.
The challenges I faced together with the team have been exciting and the progress has been rewarding - I was out to dinner with a very good friend recently who started a new job at a similar time to myself and we got into a great discussion about the energy and motivation from taking on a new challenge.
I remember having a fresh perspective on things and as the new boy asking all sorts of questions to deepen my understanding whilst also searching for efficiencies and to ensure we had solid foundations allowed us to truly fix the fundamentals around the processes. My background in sales and marketing from other industries helped me drive positive change and bring dynamism to the entire team.
A very proud moment was the delivery of the new strategy complete with vision, mission and values all through a fun bottom-up process based on input from clients, actionable insights and the inputs from our entire Cygnus team. A complete brand refresh and creating a hub for our team to work effectively and a collaborative space for clients were pivotal moves.
It’s been a privilege to lead the team at Cygnus and to win awards as recognition for all their hard work and dedication. Our ability to build credibility through winning back to back The Drum Rose gold awards for outstanding branding projects and taking the top spot of Number One The Drum Recommends agency for Branding and Campaign work in the UK gives us all the feel good factor!
I’m so proud of the team at Cygnus for what they've achieved in such a short time. Everyday the team challenge me, surprises me and wow me. Everyday is different but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the work we produce and how we deliver the experience and value to our clients.
We have grown strongly, when I joined Cygnus we had 22 people in the team, today we have 35 and plan to have 40 by the end of 2024. We empower our team to deliver everyday, “set them free” to coin a phrase. I was insistent that we have an inclusive culture that values diverse perspectives and encourages collaboration. It feels a bit like King Arthur’s round table sometimes, all 35 of our team have a voice and can table anything, anytime. We’ve had to empower the teams so they can excel creatively and deliver against our client's requirements. Our SLT is collectively leveraging their expertise and providing guidance which is working and helping us achieve against the goals we have set ourselves for success. Some of the SLT have had to really live our new vision by getting outside of their own comfort zones. I would hope they would agree that they have become much more commercial and client focused in their approach every day. We are building on resilience, strategic thinking and re-writing the client experience rule book together!
Above all else, it’s the relationships the team have developed with our client base and the way they challenge them everyday so we can assist them in outperforming their competitors. We put our clients at the heart of our business and we are lucky to work across many different sectors as we have the talented team to turn our hands to any challenging brief.
Another reward has been the realisation that there are serious opportunities out there for disruption and innovation. There are a lot of agencies in the UK&I, probably well over 500, so we have to be different at Cygnus. Our new vision is to “get brands out of their comfort zone” so we decided early on as a team to challenge conventional practices, introduce disruptive ideas, and drive transformation within the agency. With the onset of AI it’s forcing us to think differently and turn something that could be a threat to our business into a massive opportunity for growth and our clients.
Finally, I wanted to conclude with a thought from the book by Jim Collins “Good To Great”. If you haven't read it, I would strongly recommend it. Many points have resonated with me for years but one in particular I thought I’d share is around teams and their importance to business success. I don't profess to be an expert in Creative and Digital design but at Cygnus we do have a team that is and which I’m immensely proud of.
“We expected that good to great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.Then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage “People are the most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.
Reference Jim Collins ”Good To Great”
N.B Cygnus is an in-house marketing agency specialising in Creative Branding, Campaigns, Website builds, Digital Marketing and much more. At the time of going to print, Cygnus is currently ranked Number 1 for Creative Branding in the UK by The Drum Recommends, we have been made number 1 by our clients.. We work with Large, medium and smaller SMEs nationally and globally. We use insight to drive our processes and creative delivery and we try to get our clients outside their comfort zones. If you fancy getting outside your comfort zone to get your business out competing your competitors, please do get in touch. Thank you for reading my first ever blog.
Marcus Swift, marcus@cygnus.co.uk