Hi I am Robert Bruce, and this is my first day blogging on my self-titled site..
I write a lot of posts and blogs for my clients, recently have started writing for Idealog magazine, and am also as the voice behind my experiential marketing agency SublimeNZ, which I founded in 2006. So I thought after all these years it was about time I started just sharing whatever I felt, without an agenda, on my own little blog. Read into it what you will, share/post/discuss.. whatever. Enjoy.
Running SublimeNZ has been an interesting journey for me: over the past (nearly 7!) years, the company has grown from being in a home office to becoming one of the best known agencies of its type in New Zealand, employing thousands of contracted staff and dozens of full time managers. It has not always been easy, and the business and I have had many highs and also a few lows. The agency first peaked in 2007, one year after I launched it. Those were the days! Brands were willing to try really creative things, and I guess because the company was new (and I was the new kid on the blog) it really went wild.
I remember being 23 years old, and getting a phone call from a new client out of the blue. At the time, the business was very small and I was working from home. The client called and said "look Rob, we need to launch this new pharmacy in Auckland... I don't know if you will be keen as the budget is so small. We only have about $50,000 to work with.. what can you do?". At the time, I had nearly no overheads, and the largest job before then had only been about $5,000... so this was an insane amount of money to bank. It was very exciting back then.
Another company called me that year after I launched my first (of many) incarnations of the SublimeNZ website, and without even putting us through a tender process gave me over half a million dollars of work a year, at events around the country. Again, this was crazy money (and exposure) for a fledgling company and a rookie business owner. It was on the back of these few wins in 07 (including Porsche, another high profile win) that the company revenue and profile sky rocketed.
Alas, all good things come to an end and in mid 2008 the GFC hit and of course things started going pear shaped. I learned, the hard way, the error of my slightly extravagant ways: my overheads were way too high, I had too many full time staff, clients started reducing their spend on marketing and 'tightened their belts', and meanwhile I had decided to open a modeling agency to complement the promotions business.
The result of all these things happening at once, was a near meltdown for the business (and I suppose looking back, for me too). I had to eat some serious humble pie, and face facts that $1000 bar tabs and a Ponsonby rd office were no longer sustainable in this climate. The model agency in particular was a huge mistake.
The lesson from that experience was that you have to stay true to what you do best, you must never turn your back on your clients, and you need to always have a simple brand message and key proposition.
I folded the model agency (named Aspire) in 2009. It was never going to work, but at the time no one could tell me any different. I guess this is the way I operate: I am a 'balls and all' operator, and get very excited and very passionate about the ideas I have. Sometimes this passion achieves remarkable results, other times I end up with friends saying "I told you that was a bad idea!".
During that time I looked terrible, and was half dead. In the worst shape of my life- which actually inspired me to take up boxing, where I shed about 25kgs over the next year or so.
What matters to me, is that after every challenge I dust myself off, look at where I went wrong, and make a mental note to never repeat the same mistakes. You can't buy the experience I have learned by battling through the recession and nearly going bust.
2008 through to 2010 were really tough years. In order to keep the business afloat and keep trading, I had to sell everything I owned (including a house, vintage Jaguar, and lots of other toys), make my staff redundant, and actually move into my office for a while. I remember the first night I spent sleeping in my office (street level, Ponsonby road - which is a very busy road with nightclubs on it) and hearing drunks walking past and peeing on my door etc.. I did not get any sleep. it was the worst period of my life, and I was exhausted. Exhausted and broke.
Thankfully, family and friends helped me pull through. My sister let me stay in her house cheaply, friends rallied around (at one point, doing my washing for me as there was no where to wash my clothes in the office!) and delivered food parcels. Other generosity was in the form of a neighboring business owner offering me a room above his bar for me to work out of, because I had to urgently evacuate the lease I had in the original office. The business was still running, and needed a home base to store stuff and set up desks etc, so this was a perfect solution. This place smelt of stale beer and hot chips 24/7, but at $150 per week including outgoings it was the cheapest 10square meters in Auckland! I stayed working above that bar for around 12 months, until I had outgrown the space / overstayed my welcome- and it was time to move on. I will always be grateful to the owner of the bar (now gone.. it was called the Crossroads) for letting me have that space so cheaply. I also started to get back involved in the promotions: personally attending them, getting free air time (on GeorgeFM, my favourite station in Auckland) and generally starting to 'hustle' again as I had done to start the business. It felt good to get involved, and it worked: business really started picking up again.
Next I moved into a wonderful entrepreneurial office space called Generator, which is a shared business hub in the middle of Auckland CBD (in the Britomart precinct). Generator is all about collaboration, inspiration, and having fun at work. My team (then three people) were the very first tenants in there and actually moved in while construction was still happening. The space is now awesome, with high back chairs and great coffee and luxury boardrooms.. it feels like a country club meets a wine bar.
Business came around 360 degrees in 2011 thanks to the RWC2011. I had over 400 staff working in the corporate boxes, at the stadium, outside the stadium, and entertaining VIP guests all around the country during that time. It was amazing.. and the money generated there was enough to completely repay the residual debts that had been incurred during the GFC. It was a great year, and the full time team grew to around 8 (3 x account managers, 1 x Wellington manager, 1 x accountant, 1 x graphic artist, and a number of other helpers). It was super hard work: just an unrelenting barrage of staff requests, changes, last minute cancellations (or worse, bookings), and meetings with global marketing types who did not really get the 'she'll be right' attitude of NZ. Still we made it through in one piece - just - and I took four of the staff to Rarotonga for a whole week of relaxation: not a bad treat if I don't say so myself!
Things have been pretty subdued since the world cup: there are still projects coming up in the experiential space (product launches, sponsorships, promotional staffing bookings etc) but it is certainly not the same as world cup year, and is not at the crazy peaks of pre-GFC yet either. Not too far away I hope.
Meanwhile, through all of this, my own inspiration and motivation have been on a roller coaster.
As an entreprenuer, the 'buck stops with you' and there can be a lot of mouths to feed. I have personally found it challenging to stay motivated in the face of huge difficulty (I am human too), but have enjoyed every minute.
I have some interesting stuff in the pipeline, and I am starting to look at my life a little differently. I know there are a big things in my future, but what form that takes (ie what business I will be running to get there) is still to be confirmed. I think for certainly, whatever happens in my future, I will be disrupting and shaking things up, and getting a business off the ground. That is what I love: I love starting businesses, getting them rocking, and creating noise far in excess of what has been budgeted for. I am a hustler, by nature.
Anyway, I will chip away at this blog: don't feel obliged to read it: no pressure! But if you take something out of it, or have some thoughts of your own, feel free to post them here or get in touch.
