‘Part of me had this vision that I’d work five hours a day and then play PlayStation for the rest of the time.’ The founder of Kaizen marketing agency on the realities of setting up a business
When you’re starting your own business, there’s a steep learning curve, even for the most able of us. Here, Pete Campbell, founder of award-winning marketing agency Kaizen, shares six lessons he learnt when setting up the company. Campbell built his first website aged 11 and is a regular speaker at marketing conferences.
1. Prepare for the transition
I know it’s a classic, but I can remember it being a hard transition going from working in a company to starting my own business. In previous jobs I was hands-on, doing creative, strategy and managing campaigns, which is what I loved. But when you start your own business, you find out you only have so much time in the day for the actual work. By the time I had three clients, the work that I loved was cut into by admin, bookkeeping and finances. At the start I found 60% was client work, and 40% was my own business admin. And even with this split, I still ended up with absolutely no time for my own marketing. I went six months without a website, logo, or branding. Ironic, considering I was supposed to be the marketing agency.
