Happy birthday to us! Lessons from 18 years in business

EvokedSet reached a momentous milestone earlier this year, that we somehow forgot to celebrate: we turned 18!

We launched our consultancy in 2006 with the vision of PR and web working together. It's fair to say that we were one of the earliest PR agencies to spot the opportunities that online marketing - our clients' most cost-effective and intimate channel - presented for maximising PR success and ROI.

Since then, our commercial journey has been characterised by the usual mix of glorious triumphs, unwelcome setbacks and mettle-testing challenges experienced by every small business (including weathering at least two major recessions and a global pandemic). We're extremely proud to have not just survived, but thrived - coming of age at a time when our specialisms and capabilities are still in high demand and field-proven over almost two decades of delivering outstanding results for our clients.

So what have we learnt from our 18+ years of being in business? Here are our top 10 hard-won lessons learned from life at the sharp end of running a B2B PR and marketing agency:

1) Decide what you want to be famous for
It's important to set out your brand stall early on and define your core value to clients. In founding EvokedSet, we decided to focus squarely on delivering "continuous communications" - PR and web working in harmony for our customers. As we grew, we realised that another very strong point of differentiation was our highly experienced, director-level PR support, plus our strategic nous in delivering coherent, cost-effective communications programmes set against specific objectives. It's easy to ask a hard question or shoot from the hip - all of our clients have really valued our strategy-led, results-driven process.

2) Unprofitable business is business you can get anywhere
Any agency can give its time and resources away to clients for free, but your ultimate success as a business can only be built on the basis of building mutually profitable relationships with customers who value your contribution. Knowing your own value and being able to substantiate it - and price accordingly - should be a first principle.

3) Grow based on client delight - not just inflation
When it comes to contract negotiations, the ideal position for any agency is to be able to secure more work - and higher budgets - based on measurable results and client delight, rather than just seeking to justify increased fees based purely on inflation. Creating happy clients and outperforming expectations is both personally rewarding and makes very sound business sense.

4) Remember: quality will out
It's always been a source of immense satisfaction for us that we've been able to build long-term, trusted relationships with our clients. More than once, clients have parted ways with us in favour of a vanity agency appointment they felt they "should make" only to return - months or even years later - when things didn't quite work out how they wanted. And the chief complaint of returning clients? Poor quality of delivery from their day-to-day account team, especially in the ability to generate fit-for-purpose content and simply "getting" the client.

5) Care about your clients
We have always cared about our clients and make it our mission to never let them fail. For us, clients are never out of sight and out of mind - we think about them every single day, no matter how small the campaign. We want each and every one of our clients to be proud that they chose to work with EvokedSet, and for our output and results to deliver a strong internal vote of confidence for our engager.

6) Care about your team
Successful PR and marketing programmes are a team effort. We work hard to ensure that our expectations are always crystal-clear, realistic and acheivable, and that everyone in the EvokedSet team is empowered to be successful and benefits from our loyalty and unswerving support - always. When it comes to working with suppliers, we always pay on time (even early!) because we know from experience that you feel the cashflow bumps more within a small business. Be the client you would want - and remember to say thank you.

7) Never burn a bridge
Business, as with life, can throw up many surprises and unexpected trajectories. We've held it as a guiding principle to never burn a bridge when relationships change or come to a natural conclusion, and this dictum has never failed to serve us well. Offer a safe crossing back for everyone in your network - not only is it the right thing to do on a human level, but your balance sheet will undoubtedly thank you for it.

8) Build your specialisms based on passion
If your team is passionate about the value or beneficial impact of a particular industry sector, actively seek out clients operating in that space and burnish your skills and experience to develop a recognised agency specialism. Passion breeds enthusiasm, creativity and motivation - harness it.

9) When the going gets tough, the tough diversify
When recession hits, or a specific industry segment dips, it pays to be flexible and open to adapting your client offering. As a consultancy, EvokedSet has often taken steps to shift our service portfolio to better reflect our clients' changing needs and priorities and ensure that our revenue streams are diversified and contiguous.

10) Always be prospecting
Even when business is going gangbusters, it's vital to keep prospecting and filling the hopper with potential future clients. B2B sales cycles are long and you may need to keep those prospects warm for many months before they're in a position to signed on the dotted line with you. Keep your selling muscles exercised at all times!