How Brand Cartel's Founders Survived Their Start-up Years to Master Exponential Growth Marco Ferreira, Renate Albrecht and Dillon Warren launched Brand Cartel because they wanted to go to work each day with people they liked and trusted in a workspace that mirrored their values. It's taken five years, but they've built a through-the-line agency that delivers exactly what they wanted - and has grown exponentially as a result.

Players: Marco Ferreira, Renate Albrecht and Dillon Warren

Company: Brand Cartel

Launced: 2013

Visit: www.brandcartel.co.za

When Dillon Warren, Renate Albrecht and Marco Ferreira launched Brand Cartel in 2013 they were in their early 20s with zero agency experience between them. The idea had started when Marco recognised that social media was taking off, but no agencies were playing in that space yet. It was a clear opportunity.

Printing flyers that said "Your social media is so last season', Marco and Renate went from store to store in Sandton City, pitching their services.

When Dillon joined them a few months later because they needed someone to handle the company's finances, they had two laptops between them, R6 000, which Dillon had earned from a Ricoffy advert, and sheer will and tenacity.

"We shared a house to save on rent and split everything three ways," says Renate. "At one point we hadn't eaten in two days. My mom lent me R500 so I could buy Futurelife and a bag of apples for the three of us." The trio hired their first employee soon after launching Brand Cartel, and after prioritising salaries and bills, there wasn't much leftover.

"Dillon actually paid us R67 each one month," laughs Marco. "That's what was left — although I still can't believe he actually sent it to us." It was at this point that the young business owners realised they needed credit cards if they were going to make it through their start-up phase — not an easy feat when your bank balance is under R100.

"Looking back, those days really taught us the value of money," says Dillon. "We spent a lot of time with very little, and we're still careful with money today." Through it all though, the partners kept their focus on building their business. "It almost didn't work for a long time. We were young and naïve, but in a way, that was our strength. We didn't have any responsibilities, and

we'd never worked at agencies, which meant we had no idea how much you need to run an agency. We grew into it. It's made us really good at what we do.

All of our business has been referral business. It takes time, but we focused on being the best we could be and giving everything we had to our clients. Our differentiator was that we really cared, and were willing to offer any solutions as long as they aligned with our values."

This is how Brand Cartel has grown from a social media agency into PR and Media Buying, SEO and PPC Strategy, Digital and Print Design, Web Development, Campaign Strategy and now an Influencer division.

"It's an incredibly competitive space with low barriers to entry, which meant it was easy to launch, but tougher to build a client base," says Renate. "I'd sometimes cry in my car between sales pitches, and then walk in smiling. We had no idea if we'd make it."

The perseverance has paid off though. Strong foundations have laid the groundwork for exponential growth over the past year, with turnover growing almost ten-fold in 2017 thanks to relationship-building, strong referrals and fostering an internal culture and set of values that has driven the business to new heights as a team.

Like many start-ups, Renate, Dillon and Marco have made their fair share of hiring mistakes, but as the business grew and matured, the young entrepreneurs began to realise that the success of their business lay in the quality of their team and the values they stood for.

This meant two things: Those values needed to be formalised so that they could permeate everything Brand Cartel does, and they needed a team that lived, breathed and believed in them.

"We've had some nasty experiences," admits Dillon. "You should always hire slowly and fire fast, and for five years we did the opposite. We've hired incredible people, but we've also ended up with individuals who didn't align with our values at all, and that can destroy your culture.

Dillon, Marco and Renate realised they needed to put their values on paper.

"We did an exercise and actually plotted people based on a score grading them against our values, so we knew where our issues were. We knew what we wanted to stand for, and who was aligned with those values.

We were right; within a few weeks resignations came in and we mutually parted ways." The team that stayed was different. They embraced Brand Cartel's values, and more importantly, it gave the partners a hiring blueprint going forward. "Values are intangibles that you somehow need to make real, so it's important to think about the language you use, and how they can be used in a real-world work context," says Marco.

The team has done this in a number of ways. First, they chose "value phrases' that can be used in conversation, for example, "check it, don't wreck it', and "are you wagging your tail?' Team members can gently remind each other of the value system and focus everyone on a task at hand simply by referring to the company's values.

"In addition, when someone is not behaving according to those values, you can call them out on the value, which is an external thing, rather than calling them out personally," explains Dillon. Second, all performance reviews are based on the values first.

This means everyone in the organisation begins any interaction from a place of trust, knowing they are operating according to the same value system. "When you're in a production environment with jobs moving through a pipeline, there can be problems and delays," explains Marco.

"Instead of pointing fingers when something is over deadline or a mistake is made, our team can give each other the benefit of the doubt and work together. They trust each other, which creates cohesion. We all work as a team, which impacts the quality of our work and the service we offer our clients."

The system is simple. Coaches will step in first if there is an issue before it escalates to the Head of Team Experience, Nicole Lambrou. If Nicole is called in, she will address the problem head on.

"Inevitably it's something fixable," says Marco. "By addressing it immediately and in the context of our values it can be sorted out quickly. Ultimately, the overall quality of our team improves, and we are a more cohesive unit."

The founders have seen this in action.

"I recently arrived at a client event and three different people came up to me and complimented my team on the same things — all of which aligned with our values. Everyone at Brand Cartel lives them, internally and externally," says Renate.

The value system has also shaped how the team hires new employees. "We used to meet people and hire for the position if they could do the job," says Renate. "But then we started realising that anyone can hold up for an hour or two in an interview.

You only learn who they really are three months and one day later. "We need people who walk the talk, and we really only had a proper measurement of that once we articulated our values. Our interview style has changed, but so has what we look for."

Here are the seven values that Dillon, Marco and Renate developed based on what they want their business to look like, how they want it to operate, and what they want to achieve, both internally, and in the market place.

1. Play with your work

Our goal is for everyone on our team to become so good at what they do that it's no longer work. Once that happens you love your job because you're killing it. It's why sportsmen are called players, not workers, and it starts with the right mindset.

2. Wag your tail

The idea behind this value stems from Dale Carnegie, who said "have you ever met a Labrador you don't like?' In other words, we all respond well to people who are friendly. It needs to be genuine though, so again, it's a mindset that you need to embrace.

We live these values whether we're at the office or meeting clients. If you go into each and every situation with joy and excitement, from meeting someone new to a new brief coming in, you'll be motivated and excited — and so will everyone around you.

3. Check it, don't wreck it

The little things can make big differences. Previously it was too easy to pass the buck, which meant mistakes could — and did — happen. Once you instil a sense of ownership and create a space where people are comfortable admitting to a mistake however, two things happen.

First, things get checked and caught before there's a problem. Second, people will own up if something goes wrong. This can help avoid disasters, but it also leads to learnings, and the same thing not happening again.

4. What's Plan B (aka make it happen)

We don't want to hear about the problem; come to us with solutions, or better yet, already have solved the problem and made it happen. We reached a point where we had too many people coming to us with every small problem they encountered, or telling us that something wasn't working so they just didn't do it.

That wasn't the way we operated, and it definitely wasn't the way we wanted our company to operate. We also didn't want to be spoon feeding our team. It's normal for things to go wrong and problems to creep in — success lies in how those problems are handled.

Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away, so we embrace them instead, encouraging everyone on our team to continuously look for solutions.

For example, the PR department holds a "keep the paw-paw at Fruit & Veg City' meeting every morning, where we deliberately look for where problems might arise so that we can handle them before they do.

We start with what's going wrong and then move to what's going right. You need to give your team a safe and transparent space to air problems though. We don't escalate. We need to know issues so that we can collectively fix them, not to find fault.

5. Put your name to it

It's about pride in work and making it your own. When someone has pride in what they're doing, they'll not only put in extra time and effort, but they'll pull out all the stops to make their creative pop, or go the extra mile for a client. We need to find the balance between great quality work and fast output though. One way we've achieved this is by everyone reviewing the client brief and then committing to how long their portion will take.

When someone gives an upfront commitment, they immediately take ownership of the job.

It took time for us to find our groove with this, but today we can really see the difference. Our creative coaches also keep a close eye on timesheets and where everyone is in relation to the job as a whole to keep the entire brief on track.

If someone is heading towards overtime we can immediately ask if something is wrong and if they need assistance.

We also celebrate everything that leaves our studio. Every morning we have a mandatory 15-minute catch up session where we check in on four core things: How am I feeling (which allows us to pick up on the mood in the room and the pressure levels of our teams);

What's the most important thing I did yesterday; What's the most important thing I'm going to do today (both of which give intention and accountability); and "stucks', issues that team members need help with. We then end off with our achievements so that we can celebrate them together.

6. Keep it real (aka check your ego at the door)

We believe in transparency. At the end of the day we're all people trying to achieve the same thing, but it's easy for ego to creep in — especially when things go wrong. You can't be ego-driven and solutions-orientated. If clients or team members are having a bad day, you need to be able to focus on the solution.

Take ego away and you can do just that. It's how we deal with stucks as well. We can call each other out and say, "I'm waiting for you and can't do my job until I receive what you owe me,' and instead of getting a negative, ego-driven reaction, a colleague will say, "sorry, I'm on it.'

7. Walk the talk

For us, "walk the talk' really pulls all our other values together. It's about being realistic and communicating with each other. If you've made a mistake or run into a problem, tell your client. Don't go silent while you try and fix it. Let them know what's happening and fill them in on your plan of action.

Walk the talk also deals with the industry you're in. For example, if you're a publicist, you need to dress like a publicist, talk like a publicist, and live your craft. In everything we do, we keep this top of mind.