2. Smashing It In Scale Ups With Soldo's Devonne Spence

PLEASE NOTE: This transcript has been created using fireflies.ai – a transcription service. It has not been edited by a human and therefore may contain mistakes.

[00:02:32] DOM HAWES: We're very lucky today to be joined by Devonne Spence from Soldo. Hi, Devonne. 

[00:02:37] DEVONNE SPENCE: Hello. 

[00:02:37] DOM HAWES: You're very welcome to Unicorny. We've got some really interesting things to talk to you today about. Why don't you start by giving us an introduction to Soldo itself? 

[00:02:46] DEVONNE SPENCE: I would love to, but first of all, just to say thank you for having me. This is super exciting, and it's great to be here and to share my experiences. I'm the Head of PR at Soldo. What is Soldo? It's effectively a prepaid card solution from anything from small business right through to some of our biggest clients, such as Jim Shark and Mercedes-Benz. What does that look like? If you are a team and you're scaling, you’re growing, you have costs, you've got to pay for things like events, you've got to pay for media, you're going to pay for conferences. This just gives you a really easy to use card and app, just to make that whole process a lot more easier. 

If you are a finance manager, or if you are a CFO, you've got lots of different invoices coming in and out of your business. This way with an app, you can see exactly what the cash flow is. We know that our customers will probably save about 2% on revenue share each year, and maybe 30 days per person within their organisation on manual expense days, which is the biggest problem that we're trying to solve. Super interesting company. Just been through a Series C, and it's a wonderful time to be the Head of PR for such a great tech company. 

[00:04:01] DOM HAWES: Fabulous. Very competitive market space. FinTech seems to be on everyone's lips at the moment. How do you find it? 

[00:04:05] DEVONNE SPENCE: I mean, look, it's super competitive. We've seen the VC numbers. The series A’s that we are seeing are literally incredible. Series A looks like a series C now. The competition is huge. Our competition includes the likes of Tide, that have an expense management. Virgin just came out with expense management. Also, we've got Pleo and Spendesk, who play in the spend management sector. What we're doing is quite niche. A lot of people don't know we have the problem. I think in FinTech, if you can describe the problem that you're trying to solve in easy-to-understand language, it's much more easier to get that whole share of wallet. 

[00:04:43] DOM HAWES: What are Soldo’s key points of differentiation? 

[00:04:46] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think that we know business like no other. A lot of companies come to West, from series A and then they go through to series C. We scale with them. We know what they need. We know what finance teams need. We know what CFOs need. I think, CFOs right now, they are, and CCOs, they are the new rockstars. It's not just the CEO anymore for a FinTech company. You need to have an amazing team around you. Our product appeals directly to those people. We know exactly what they need and we speak their language, and that's what sets us out from the competition. 

[00:05:20] DOM HAWES: That's pretty cool. Our CFO would love that. 

[00:05:22] DEVONNE SPENCE: Really? 

[00:05:23] SAMANTHA LOSEY: To be a rockstar. 

[00:05:24] DEVONNE SPENCE: I also saw my CFO – 

[00:05:25] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I think, quite like to be a rockstar physically, too. [Inaudible 00:05:27]. Just imagine that. 

[00:05:29] DEVONNE SPENCE: Definitely. I think it's just wonderful because it's just not – Also, I think when you're a founder CEO, that level of buy-in, that passion, that emotional and stress investment is so much higher than everybody else. You need that team around you. 

[00:05:46] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You really do. They make such a difference, don't they? It's so interesting what you say about the CFO being the new rockstar because I think now people are starting to see deals like the Gymshark deal he mentioned. Immediately, one of our smaller businesses that are doing their round at the moment said to me, “Who did that deal? Get me the team for that deal.” Suddenly, he's like, “Who was the CFO? Who were the finance people?” This is a guy who's an inventor. He's not really interested in this at all. Suddenly, it's like, okay, the spotlight is shone on that industry right now so much. 

[00:06:15] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, it's super interesting. If you think about 10 years ago, the likes of the Monzos, that they are cardless, everyone coming out of that Y incubator and then going crazy. We've got this class that's all graduating now. It’s, are these valuations real. Is there a little bit of overhype? Do we have a tech bubble? I think, there is a massive spotlight on the fintech from an investment perspective, innovation perspective. Also, other VCs throwing a bit too much money at it. I think that's what people are having to be mindful about. 

[00:06:48] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it, how that fits in. Do you do quite a lot of PR and press and publicity around your fundraising, or do you leave that alone? 

[00:06:56] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. Well, we just had the series C, and we work very closely with the VC teams and with the PRs within those VC teams. You would think, well, they're investing in so many companies, they don't have time for me. Actually, what they love if people want to have something to take away, reach out to your VC peers. They are getting tons of opportunities. Virtual panels, conferences, being in the room with the hottest C-suite. Probably, at some of the companies you're trying to target. Work with them. I think that can be a really successful thing for you to do. It gives you more visibility. 

[00:07:30] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That makes so much sense as well, because classically, VCs are so unsexy in their own way. It's like, will you add a little bit of sex appeal to it and you're game to do some things. Suddenly, the VCs are seeing themselves in places they wouldn't expect and everyone's winning reputationally and it helps to bolster all sides of the conversation. 

[00:07:47] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I love what you've just said. We found that we were getting on more lists, top 20 places to work. It was because people were seeing the commentary from that third-party validation, which is the VC. We need that. It can't just be me telling you that we’re great. You want to hear Don Capital telling you how great we are. I think, definitely working with VCs is super important. 

[00:08:09] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah, it's hard though, isn't it, when you're doing the fundraising and businesses scale, some of them so quickly, especially in the fintech space. It's almost astronomical where they can go from in the space of five, six months. That is really challenging from the comms perspective, isn't it, when you suddenly have got on your hands a beast that started out as a piglet. It's like buying a micro pig and actually the real pig and you're just stuck like, okay, fine. 

[00:08:36] DEVONNE SPENCE: Why have you put that in my head? I literally have pigs in my head now. 

[00:08:40] DOM HAWES: This is going wrong again. 

[00:08:41] DEVONNE SPENCE: This is not what I expected. 

[00:08:44] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Sorry, I’m so bad at it. 

[00:08:45] DEVONNE SPENCE: It's a really good comparison because it's – you know what you were. I was sold in on a promise that this business was growing. And it is. We just had a 180 million investment. Also, you now are responsible for taking that company to the next level, delivering on your promise, but also delivering on that promise that your CEO has just made quite publicly about where the company is going to go. 

That actually can be a good thing, because it makes you hungry. You know you've got to get the business to that next level. It's a great piece of momentum that you can have. People have seen the funding round news and they want to talk to you, so you have to be ready. Have to be ready with the next stop. You can't talk about the funding round for the next six months, you have to talk about other things. We're talking about products that we are launching. We just launched the Google Pay integration and that basically means, if you've got your Soldo card, you can use that to travel on the underground, for example. Yes, you can use it to purchase up to £100, but it's almost like a card that you can use. 

With the whole remote world, we feel that that hybrid business model is something that we can support. That's one thing. We're also out there talking about the fact that we're trying to hire people, right? 

[00:09:55] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Absolutely. That internal employer brand is so crucial, isn't it? Also, the type of employees that come in at the ground floor level, versus the type of employees that you needed at mid-stage. It changes. It really changes. You get to that point where you start out needing wildly dynamic, completely push-hard people who are going to get in on the dream and be there when it’s really, really tough. When the shit is down and they need to get in it with it. Then you need after that a really great culture made up of people who are hard workers, who buy into the vision, but aren't necessarily those hustlers. You don't need everyone in the business to be a hustler. it would be unmanageable. 

[00:10:31] DEVONNE SPENCE: It would be. We spoke earlier about the pace, and I think you're so right. You do need people that are going to hustle for you, but you also do need people that are going to slow things down. Yeah, we spoke about this, running after things, which happens a lot in scale-up. 

[00:10:44] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Just chasing it. 

[00:10:45] DEVONNE SPENCE: 100%. I don't know if you find that things can be quite short-termism, because everybody's focused on leads and sales. 

[00:10:54] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's really hard, isn't it? In a scale-up, because obviously, most business is leads versus sales, versus brand awareness and brand positioning. For a lot of brands, that's a big problem. For a scale-up, to go to another strange analogy, you're a teenager who just shot up six inches. You don't know what shoes fit anymore. You suddenly, that whole thing of generating leads and sales becomes so important, because you've got the investment. Equally, you have got that task of protecting the brand, growing the brand. I wonder, how is that internally in terms of conversations? Do you have a really receptive board who likes comms generally? Do they get it? Because I think that makes such a difference. 

[00:11:30] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think you're right, what you've said about the leads, etc. Then you've got the brand awareness. Without brand awareness, you don't get leads. That's the conversation that we're actually having in our business right now. Okay, we need to make sure that the runway is healthy, we need to make money, but we also need a longer-term plan for the brand. If we just focus on the next 30 days every time, you're not going to get the growth you need, you're not going to get the brand awareness. I think, yes, definitely having that relationship with the C-suite, showing the value that you bring as a comms person, showing yourself as an expert that they can understand and respect and appreciate. 

You might sometimes come and you show them something else. I might say, “Well, look what's happening in this sector. This is how they've achieved this story and this is why. This is why. This is why I came. Just wanted to let you know.” Today we've got this player, one of our competitors. They’re on CNBC. This is how they've landed this story. These are the numbers that we would need to release from our business to have the same presence. Yeah, you need to be able to influence the C-suite 100%. 

[00:12:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It's quite a learning curve for a lot of them often, isn’t it? It really is. So many times, the business is started by a founder who's wildly impassioned and has this dream to put pink cherries on top of every bump, whatever it is. That's all they focused on all of the time. Then you have to get them to look up and look around them. It's so about communication, isn't it? Internal communication. Being on the same page and that can be really challenging. 

[00:12:52] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. Not being a yes person is part of who I am. I have 10 years in banking, right? We don't. 

[00:13:01] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I don’t know how to say yes. 

[00:13:03] DEVONNE SPENCE: You just can't say yes to everything. Madonna famously said, “I'm successful because I don’t surround myself with yes people.” People say, “No, we can't do that. This is why.” I might not always get my way, or I might not always be able to set my influence. If I can give you the reasons, these three reasons why I wouldn't do this. If you really care about this, I would go with this. Then you're going to get this. If you don't like it, we can test this. 

[00:13:25] DEVONNE SPENCE: I think having that flexible approach, but then also, you can't win everything. Sometimes it's going to be no – 

[00:13:32] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Pick your battles. 

[00:13:33] DEVONNE SPENCE: That’s absolutely fine. 

[00:13:34] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's a key takeaway, I would say. Know that you're not going to win every battle. Pick those battles. As well as the business having a short-term, long-term. You have to have that for yourself, don’t you? That's really important. Not necessarily just in terms of career growth, but am I fighting this battle today, or am I letting this one go? Because in three weeks’ time, I'm going to really need this. You've got to think strategically when you're growing so quickly, haven’t you? 

[00:13:58] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I really like that. I think, you've got to be strategic. You've got to be neutral, and you've also got to check ego at the door. Sometimes I have to be like, “What are you doing? Why are you so upset about this thing? It is my company, but it's not your company.” At the end of the day, if somebody doesn't want to do a certain thing, or they say in six months, let it be. Wait for the six months. 

I think, you've got to focus on, as you said, what are the top three things that we want to achieve to scale this company? Who do I need in the business to help me to do that? Find these people and make them your best friend. Feed them. Go for coffees. Take them for a nice lunch. Do what you need to win and influence those relationships. Keep building. I think also, with the scale-up, money is so under the microscope. Show. I mean, you must in your agency, show the value of what you're bringing. 

[00:14:48] SAMANTHA LOSEY: How do you do that? Because it takes us on to that really interesting question about measurement. 

[00:14:52] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yes. 

[00:14:53] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Which we all love to hate to have to love. I'm always obsessive about trying to find more metrics that demonstrate if something that isn't just 100,000 views or whatever. What does that mean, everybody? What does it mean? How do you demonstrate value? What are the things that for you utilises measurement tools that are impactful for the C-suite? 

[00:15:13] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. Okay. Then I want to compare with yours, because I think that will be really interesting, because you see a lot of requests from different companies – 

[00:15:19] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yes. Everyone makes things totally differently. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:15:21] DEVONNE SPENCE: Exactly. For me, I try and keep it simple. Let's focus on what the KPIs are. We had 150% increase in media volume over the last year, so we have smashed the KPI in the first quarter. That's great. Obviously, nobody wants to hear that. They want to see what else you did. I will look at things like, backlink creation. How many stories that are great, tier-one that I bring in people back to Soldo? I like to look at backlink creation. I also like to speak to a growth team and say, “Okay, I launched Google Pay two days ago. Can you show me the web?” 

[00:15:57] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. Let me see the data. 

[00:15:58] DEVONNE SPENCE: Traffic data. Sometimes you get a 30% uptick. I'll take that. That's my 30%. I think, also, when you're delivering these numbers, whether it's key messages that were hey, or if like you were saying, impressions, or the publication, sentiment. I always try and use language that my audience likes to use. I talk about things like revenue. I talk about things like visibility. Speak to them in – 

[00:16:26] SAMANTHA LOSEY: In their language. That's a really good thing, isn't it? I think for marketeers generally, there's often this disconnect in terms of how you communicate. I think, the quicker you understand how that person or that group of people needs to be spoken to and how they see the numbers. We have this with clients all the time, where stuff doesn't go – gets the C-suite and then they're like, “What does this mean?” I don't understand this. You have to really understand your audience in the same way that I think comms is entirely about understanding your audience, fundamentally. It’s the same when you're running a marketing department. 

[00:16:54] DEVONNE SPENCE: You’ve got to make it easier and easy for them to understand. I'd love to know how on your side you do this. You have in terms of reporting a measurement, or a number of clicks, whatever. It would be interesting to know. 

[00:17:07] SAMANTHA LOSEY: We've got such a blend. We’ve got such a blend. Some clients are still stuck with add value. Even though I have the conversation where I'm like, it means literally nothing. I could tell you how many sheets are on the roll of toilet paper, and that would be a more impactful number. They want it, so you give it to them. Absolutely fine. I think, the sentiment a 100%. We look at NPS a lot. I also like NPS, because it gives them that more long-term view. You know that they love it. Especially with those businesses like a BT, or a BioWare, that's so important for you guys. Do you track that yet, or you'll come to it, it’s not at the moment yet? 

[00:17:38] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, we've tracked it. We’ve tracked it. I'm not 100% sure if the people that are tracking it for us have got it right. 

[00:17:44] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's really important. 

[00:17:45] DEVONNE SPENCE: That’s my worry. I'm scared to send that out. Because once that goes out, they’ll start asking questions. If I can't answer the questions, then my reporting is nullified. 

[00:17:54] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? When it comes to measurement, you need to know what you're trying to measure. You also need to be able to verify those measurements. That's why, as I said to you, we didn't work with paid influencers, we just don't see the value in it. We work with advocates and we'll often work in partnership with them and find those key individuals in places that have genuine cut through. I think we have gotten very – because the numbers made finance so comfortable. Because that made them feel like, “Oh, okay. There’s a value to that.” We start sticking numbers on everything. 

I think it was very much that, what does it measure? How many? What is the uplift? What was it like to – Does that give you a picture of the whole? Because what you're missing is the human component. You take that data, some of it with a big pinch of salt. You layer human behaviour over the top of it, and then you get a picture. The picture is not what finance want. They want the numbers. I think that's how we've gotten myself into this – 

[00:18:48] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. Report over. Reporting almost – 

[00:18:48] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Over-reporting. Yeah. 

[00:18:50] DEVONNE SPENCE: I think, there's also, you and I had a conversation about a high-end gym earlier and BXR. I told you about the experience that I had when I was there, and I felt like I was – they literally treated me like an athlete. It was, everything was very high-end. I went away feeling amazing. 

[00:19:06] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Feeling good about it. Yeah. 

[00:19:06] DEVONNE SPENCE: You can't tie that back to a stat. I may, or may not become a member, and you can't tie that back to a stat. 

[00:19:13] SAMANTHA LOSEY: No. Exactly. 

[00:19:13] DEVONNE SPENCE: There is that feeling of that good vibe you get around the brands that at some point, I will – 

[00:19:20] SAMANTHA LOSEY: In some way, interact with it, or commend it, or something. 

[00:19:21] DEVONNE SPENCE: At some point, I’m going to get the new some – I will get it. I’m very close to it, but it's going to be difficult for them to tie back to a stat. 

[00:19:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. That's really interesting in terms of touch-points, isn't it? Because I think we all talk a lot about the funnel, which is a ridiculous thing to talk about. We all talk a lot about the customer journey. What does that look like for you guys in terms of, do you subscribe to a very strict model of touch-points, or how do you map that out for you guys? Because it's moving so fast. 

[00:19:48] DEVONNE SPENCE: It's moving so fast and it's a really good question. I will be transparent with you. I was having this conversation. We have a session with our CMO and Growth Team, and these are the questions that we're actually asking ourselves now because I think we're recognising that we moved at such an incredible pace. We didn't have time for caretaking. We just had to onboard these clients. We had to hire people. Now, we are doing that touchpoint analysis. What happens when you get here? What happens when you go? Why did that customer leave there? Why did they not go through that route on the website? We are doing that analytical work now. Yeah, and I think I'm really proud that we're looking inwards. 

[00:20:27] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yes. Because I think it is. It's an inside-out solution. It's not an outside-in solution at all. 

[00:20:32] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think the customer experience is everything. I think we admit that we need to hire more people, we need to have people that can speak different languages. Our German customers really feel they're getting a fully-fledged local experience, as opposed to one person speaking English, one person speaking German. Mixed experiences. 

[00:20:51] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's a really interesting challenge that you’ve got there as well, isn't it? Lots of scale-ups will find themselves moving into other markets very quickly. How do you manage that from a marketing perspective? Did you quickly start pulling people together from different countries, or what would be your best advice in terms of how you manage that whole scale into the other countries? 

[00:21:09] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think it's a really good question, and obviously, it's something that many scale-ups are trying to do right now. We had that at Go Cardless in my previous role, where they were Series F, and now we have the same at Soldo. What I would say is that you have to be realistic. You are a very, very small fish in a huge pond. 

For example, the French market, which is super-specific. French and Germans, they like the domestic play. They like their own, which is great. We don’t have that in this country, because we don't have anything practically. Everything is owned by everybody else, but the Germans, they have their things. 

[00:21:41] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That ‘Made in Germany’. 

[00:21:42] DEVONNE SPENCE: They are going to need a really good reason, particularly from a payments perspective, to go somewhere else. 

[00:21:47] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:21:49] DEVONNE SPENCE: You need a really strong value prop. We know that in France where we're trying to crack, we know that some of the features that we have do not resonate with what the audience want. Is now the time to go hard and have a PR agency and a brand company, if we don't have the product? Does that make sense? 

[00:22:06] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Makes no sense. 

[00:22:07] DEVONNE SPENCE: Probably not. Maybe we're going to pull back, and we’ll do things, but we won't do everything. Then in Germany, we've just hired a regional marketing manager, so we're going to have lots of content, partnerships, relationships. I'm just going through an RFP process, so I can bring on a PR agency. We are getting ready, but I would say that it takes time. You really need to know the market. You also need a spokesperson. A German spokesperson, not a marketing person, whether that be German, or whatever language, so I keep focus on Germany. That person has to be the Head of Business, or maybe a Head of Sales. Credible. 

[00:22:43] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Someone who impacts the value chain. Someone who has got something to say. In terms of that, because I think thought leadership is a really interesting thing, and I think particularly for scale-ups, one of the ways that you capture white space is always as about USPs pushing product, pushing product. You can't keep doing that. That’s what your PPC is for. You have to have a positioning on various things. You have to have those thought leaders and those spokespeople to help you bring that to life. How has thought leadership worked for you? Is it something that’s progressing over time? Do you have a long-term approach for it? What does that look like? Because obviously, there's immediate need, versus long-term reputation that you've got to manage. 

[00:23:20] DEVONNE SPENCE: It's a good question. I would say, definitely progressing over time. We have tested a couple of big reports, which talk to our value proposition in a veiled way, so it doesn't feel like it's marketing. We haven't seen the fruits of that research. We're not sure if that cost 70K, would it have been better having a half-day conference with 15 potential? It’s hard to measure. Like we said. I think that's something that we're still looking at. Also, the right partner. Do you work externally, or do we need to have a leader-writer internally, that's almost an evangelist? 

[00:23:59] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It's what we do often with clients in that position is you do a halfway house, don't you? Where you wax on, wax off, where you start with a really great agency or freelance writer and they start getting into [inaudible 00:24:09]. Then, when you get to that point where suddenly, that tipping point of, no, we create way too much content for this not to be in-house. That's a really interesting thing for people to understand in terms of when do you start making those decisions? What precipitates what? Is it person first? Then, those that have the revenue, or is it the other way around? You're just completely stretched thin the whole time. 

[00:24:30] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I don't even know the answer to that. That's the honest truth because I think it's going to be difficult in every organisation. You are just going to have to do what works for you. Sometimes from a revenue perspective, it's easier to pay a consultant than to hire someone. It might be that you really look after that writer for a few months and then hope that you can hire them. I think thought leadership, it's challenging. Because I think people are bored of playbooks, some 20-page. 

[00:25:01] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Oh, a 100%. Yeah. Big data. We've done in the last year or so a lot of big reports because we do them for various different clients. We've struggled. Things that two or three years ago would have been shoe in nice soft data stories, cute consumer angle to it and the media are just not interested. I keep saying, we're in the post-report area to the team and they’re so sick of hearing it. 

[00:25:26] DEVONNE SPENCE: But you’re doing the right thing. 

[00:25:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's the other thing, isn't it, is that your landscape as a business is shifting all the time, but the media landscape is shifting all of the time. 

[00:25:33] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think you're totally right. Look what happened to journalists in lockdown. 

[00:25:38] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Oh, my God. 

[00:25:39] DEVONNE SPENCE: Right? They lost half their team. They had to double up on beats that they didn’t understand. 

[00:25:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Absolutely. 

[00:25:45] DEVONNE SPENCE: They didn't get to go out and get swanky lunches anymore, so we didn’t have a little break. 

[00:25:48] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Which we all love. Everyone loves a lunch. Dom loves a lunch, honestly. 

[00:25:50] DEVONNE SPENCE: I love a swanky lunch. My paycard is loaded. 

[00:25:54] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Exactly. 

[00:25:56] DEVONNE SPENCE: Then just retreating and being in their homes all the time, doing calls back-to-back with C-suite, PR trying to pitch them. 

[00:26:05] SAMANTHA LOSEY: All kind of freelancers. 

[00:26:06] DEVONNE SPENCE: That self-care and then went up and/or maybe not, but their stress levels went up. We were still pushing them. They’re like, “I don't want to read this.” Unless it’s McKinsey, I'm probably not going to read it. Like you say, we've got to reshape what we do. Maybe it's a one, two-page max. Three-page, absolutely max. 

[00:26:25] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I think, we're in a sweet spot for physical at the moment as well, don’t you? I think exactly as you say, in the same way that we all got shoved rats back into our cages. I think, journalists were extra had that on top of that. I think it's really funny, because again, two or so years ago, getting a journalist out of the office. My team used to complain to how the hell that they couldn't get one out. I'd be like, “Offer champagne? What are you doing to get them out?” Okay. Now, I think we're doing a couple of things physically, and I think people are like, “Yes, I’ll be there.” 

[00:26:54] DEVONNE SPENCE: I’m going. 

[00:26:55] DOM HAWES: That would be great. Yeah. 

[00:26:56] DEVONNE SPENCE: Like, we've got plans and they like it. It’s like, I'm going to do something in – 

[00:27:00] SAMANTHA LOSEY: We’re in the golden age of bringing media out, I think. That's a really important –it's about working with shifts, isn't it? It's about being as flexible and agile. That's obviously what you guys are about, being flexible and agile, but it's bloody difficult being flexible and agile. 

[00:27:14] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, it is difficult. Because you're constantly moving. If you're happy with that and if you know that's what you're going to get, then I think you have to be at peace with it. I think, anybody that is a marketer for a scale-up, you have to be at peace with uncertainty and challenge, and to have conversations and be cool with it. It's not personal. 

[00:27:33] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It’s not the end of the world. 

[00:27:34] DEVONNE SPENCE: It’s not against you. Somebody just wants to know your opinion, or somebody wants to stretch you a little bit to see if you're going to fit when everything moves around. I think, you've got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. 

[00:27:44] SAMANTHA LOSEY: What do you think is the biggest challenge in terms of not so much being comfortable being uncomfortable, but so that we all have to be there, don’t we all the time? 

[00:27:52] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. For real. Yeah. 

[00:27:53] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It's like, otherwise, what you’re doing. What do you see at the moment are your biggest challenges in terms of where you’re at in the scaling process and what that looks like for the marketing mix? 

[00:28:03] DEVONNE SPENCE: I think that with scale-ups, there is often a disconnect between where the stakeholders think the business is, where the market thinks the business is, and where the business actually is. I think it's super important to look at the business through those different lenses. That's how marketing can bring so much value to the C-suite. It might mean that you are looking at where we really are, versus the street. Then deciding, actually, we made a much bigger investment. Having a sit down with your CFO, looking at budgets for the remainder of the year and maybe upping your spend just in terms of – 

[00:28:37] SAMANTHA LOSEY: More money. 

[00:28:38] DEVONNE SPENCE: More money. Of course. Just in terms of getting you where you want to be, because you have to remember that if your competitor already has a march on you, you need to work double hard to get that position. Sometimes from a storytelling perspective, it is fine if the content and the language is a bit more aspirational than it needs to be, because you will be slightly behind the curve. 

[00:29:00] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It's exciting, right? That to me, I think it's the best thing. If you're allowed to push it, just keep pushing. 

[00:29:04] DEVONNE SPENCE: I think so. I think you've got to push. We’re women in tech, right? We have to push even harder because there on many of us. I find sometimes when you do stop pushing in those meetings, other people suddenly, oh, they've had an idea for a long time and they've been dying to say it, but they didn't feel it was the right space. Then, when one person pushes, everybody else starts pushing and then it just goes up to the next level. That's what you need. 

[00:29:30] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Can we talk about that for a second? I'm really interested in terms of the women in tech component, because I think that their marketing is an industry that actually has a lot of women in it. Even though, it is disproportion honestly run by men. What do you say? I know, is it every time? 

[00:29:45] DEVONNE SPENCE: It’s like chefs. Why are all the chefs, men? They don’t want to put the toilet seat down, but they're cooking everywhere. It's just insane. Insane. 

[00:29:55] SAMANTHA LOSEY: What would be your best advice to a woman who's moving through the marketing industry in the fintech space? Because it's really, really tough. 

[00:30:01] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I would say that, first of all, tech is quite simple. I think, women in math, women in numbers, women in tech, we sometimes think that's not for me because I don’t understand all that. I'm not a geek. I'm not an engineer. You don't need to be. You just need to understand simple things, like tech makes life easier and you just need to understand what that easy is and how it looks. I would say that early on in your career, you might have some challenges, so you're going to need a mentor, someone in your business and someone maybe outside. 

[00:30:35] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Inside of your business. That’s really interesting. 

[00:30:36] DEVONNE SPENCE: That can give you that counsel, where you can be quite open and honest. It might be harder in the earlier years, but then you're going to get to that sweet spot, where you’re going to be, probably a bit more experienced. You might even be in a minority. it'll be easier for you to find a role. 

[00:30:55] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's a really interesting thing, isn't it? Because I think that there are so many times where I find myself a single woman in a room full of men, and of men of a certain age as well. That can be very not necessarily intimidating, but everything you say better count. I feel like that a lot. Everything you say have better be – I think, for younger people coming through teams, that can be really intimidating. I think you get to the point where you're really comfortable with it, but it can be really intimidating. How do we shut this pay gap? 

[00:31:22] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, it's ridiculous. I think that my early career, I started on the trading floor and in investment. 

[00:31:28] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Oh, you’re hardly as, but you don’t need any help. 

[00:31:30] DEVONNE SPENCE: I was surrounded by amazing men and women. All races. It was like a little village, different nationalities. I understood who was wielding power and how and why. I got that really quickly. I also noticed, looking at my boss with his emails that he was sending one-liners. He wasn't even doing the whole, “Hey, how is the new candidate?” It was like, “Did you close this?” I was like, first of all, I thought it was hilarious. Then I was like, this is amazing. When I do things on his behalf, I don't have to be nice and smiley. I can just tell someone, “You're not booking that flight.” That really helped me. 

[00:32:06] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's amazing. 

[00:32:07] DEVONNE SPENCE: I would say early on, I was encouraged to speak early in a meeting. 

[00:32:12] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Interesting. 

[00:32:13] DEVONNE SPENCE: Even if it's somewhat what you're going to say, to say something pearly. Don't wait until the end. I think, also, performance coaching, which happens at that C-suite level, should happen at that junior level. Part of their wedge program. 

[00:32:30] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You think marketing teams should be really looking at investing in those junior members? I think, because that's where your culture comes from, isn’t it? 

[00:32:37] DEVONNE SPENCE: 100%. 

[00:32:38] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That's so important. For a scale-up, that question of culture. Maintaining a culture from what you started, evolving it, so that it can be all the things it has potential to be, it doesn’t get in its own way. How are you navigating that? 

[00:32:50] DEVONNE SPENCE: Oh, as you can hear, it's challenging, because you've got so many people coming in, you need to give them time to bed down so that they can be successful. For them to be successful, they need to understand the culture of the business. We are still looking at that ourselves internally and saying, what is clear? What is the roadmap, so people get it? We're looking at things are all hands. How we can make that more inclusive and interesting, like a learning place? How can people learn more about the culture? Their people haven't seen each other, right? We're hiring people. 

[00:33:23] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Oh, a 100%. It’s crazy, isn't it? 

[00:33:25] DEVONNE SPENCE: You've got that friction as well. I would say that it's ever-changing. If you can as a marketer treat your employees like customers, I would say. Really invest in them, whether that's diversity, whether that's doing sessions on self-care, sessions on how do I save my pension? There are so many things that you can influence as a marketing team, and we see so many things like, Monzo. We saw the theme of sabbatical that they’ve put out. There were so many things that we see externally that we can bring in to leaders and say, “Just want to let you know that these guys are doing this.” 

[00:33:58] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I think, you've got a really good rope on that, don't you? Because there are brands like Monzo, and it's going, okay fintech, we're going to do a four-day week, or whatever. 

[00:34:06] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. Atom Bank. 

[00:34:07] SAMANTHA LOSEY: In a way, you're allowed to really push the envelope, where other people in marketing in different sectors a 100% are not. They're dragging those old rocks around. Whereas, if you show up and of course, you have something, I would assume, something innovative to try, you’re getting quite a receptive audience. 

[00:34:23] DEVONNE SPENCE: I would say so, because a lot of the time, people, everyone needs help. Everyone is super busy, right? HR, they’re trying to hire people. They're looking at the culture. They're looking at Glassdoor. Sometimes, there’s no space for innovation. You need to be the innovative person and say, “Hey, what's the employee engagement plan? Do you want to run it past me from a PR perspective?” When we look at touch-points, there are touch-points internally that you can rocket, just literally by saying, “Well, why don't we do it this way? Or why don't we send a voice note?” There are so many cool things that you can do. I think right now with everything that's happening in the world, there is an opportunity to test. If it doesn't work, you just pull it out. 

[00:35:03] DOM HAWES: Then start again. Do you know what? For the last 30 minutes, I've been watching you guys rap, and it’s like – Normally, I'm a little bit more vocal in this. Today – 

[00:35:14] DEVONNE SPENCE: Don’t need to. 

[00:35:15] DOM HAWES: Put my feet up. 

[00:35:15] DEVONNE SPENCE: Use a lounger. 

[00:35:17] DOM HAWES: Don’t care who shares. We’re just going to watch. 

[00:35:18] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I kept checking to think, he’s going to do this in a minute. The wind-up and say, “Stop talking.” 

[00:35:23] DEVONNE SPENCE: Really good conversation. 

[00:35:24] DOM HAWES: So many good points. 

[00:35:26] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. I think, we need to go for lunch. 

[00:35:27] SAMANTHA LOSEY: I do too. A good lunch. I’ll have to use my Pleo card. 

[00:35:31] DEVONNE SPENCE: I don’t want to see it. 

[00:35:33] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Then, it’s so and so then. 

[00:35:34] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:35:36] DOM HAWES: There's so much there that I started writing down some of the takeaways as I tend to do during these. I got to 10 and I stopped. 

[00:35:42] DEVONNE SPENCE: Oh, that’s good, because I kept thinking, give them something. 

[00:35:46] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Give them something to do. I think we’ve got plenty. 

[00:35:47] DOM HAWES: There’s so many. We're still on this. Dear listener, you had a feast of things today to takeaway. I think we're going to summarise those after we’ve finished. Literally, there's so much there that it's hard, I think, to summarise it now. I just want to spend a little bit towards it, because this has been wide-ranging. I think some of those points are – but really well-made. This is a really strong podcast for anyone who's in a scale-up and doesn't always join in one and doesn't know what to expect. I'm quite keen to hear your view of the future, where you think our business is going, how you think people like us can contribute to future business success? 

[00:36:25] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, definitely. I think, the future is exciting. If we're looking at things that are happening in the metaverse, for example, and all of these companies lining up, NFTs. The Salesforce employees didn't want anything to do with NFTS and they really pushed back on it. I think community is going to be super important. If I think about community, I think about my family and school and school friends. If we look at what happened in lockdown, a lot of that was taken away from people. We know that we've got a whole two years of kids that are 14 to 16 that haven't been back to school. That concerns me. I think it's a community concern, but also a community opportunity to do something to reach those people. 

[00:37:12] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Where do you think brands stand in that? 

[00:37:13] DOM HAWES: I was going to say – 

[00:37:15] DEVONNE SPENCE: This is the thing. 

[00:37:16] DOM HAWES: Business has a response to these. There’s an expectation that business is going to play a role in that, right? 

[00:37:19] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Exactly. Absolutely. It's a civic responsibility for brands, is not a maybe or a nice to have. It's not an ESP, or CSR thing. It's how are you actively contributing to improving this world? What is that like for you guys? 

[00:37:32] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. Well, we are having conversations about community now. What does it look like? Let's not just rush and put community on our website as a click-through. Let's work out, what do you want it to be? For me, it's a club. If I go to a club, if I was part of a club, how do I want the behaviour to be? You don't want to be around me. What do I want to hear? What time should it close? Who owns it? These are all the things I feel you want to answer before you go. I think, if you look at things like Salesforce, or Dreamforce or if you look at Zero, they've got communities. So many unofficial communities that are almost more popular than the original communities and they endorse those. 

I just feel, it has to be – you can have a brand-building community, but then you can have something that is less brandy and feels a lot more authentic. It feels as if Community Manager is a new role that is new. We haven't seen that before. Maybe you might have been membership services, or – It just feels as if brand, then obviously, you've got the official platforms, you've got LinkedIn, you've got Instagram, etc. You've got TikTok, and then you've got the official communities, which sit underneath a brand. If you look at what Gymshark have done with their amazing blogs and their local athletes, it's understandable. You feel part of it. It feels real. You can also contribute. I just think, a lot of the – look at the conversation that we're having today. I'm thinking, “Oh, if she was in my business, imagine what we would do.” I think some of the best people you meet are outside your business. 

[00:39:07] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Oh, without question. Absolutely. 

[00:39:08] DEVONNE SPENCE: Community gives you the opportunity to bring them all together. 

[00:39:11] SAMANTHA LOSEY: That does strike me for your brand in particular. I was thinking about this in terms of obviously, the SME, the great and wonderful SME, who we've done so much work with, and so much data on, and understanding how they work is so fundamental, because I think, and this is where big banks have really failed. They haven't understood a myriad of failures, but this particular failure is they haven't understood how SMEs really operate, what's motivating them, that that founder has this consistent fear about certain things. 

I think you guys can really be a brand in the space who demonstrates that white space about owning and understanding SMEs at a gut level. At a behavioural psychology level. Really, actions and motivators. Because God knows, they're looking for help and advice and we know they are. The data shows that they're out there hunting for it, but they're not finding a brand that looks like them, reflecting them back and that has things to add, for Barclays, Digital Angels and stuff like this. 

[00:40:05] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah. Things that don't necessarily resonate. I think SME has been through the trenches. If you look at the loans that they have to go through and all of that process and people losing their business that they've put so much money into, and then needing to scale, but not really knowing what apps do I need, what tech do I really need to do this? 

[00:40:25] SAMANTHA LOSEY: They need a hand. 

[00:40:26] DEVONNE SPENCE: That’s it. I think providing an authentic place where people can come and ask questions. People can be rewarded as well for being part of the community. It also doesn't have to just be a space online. It can be an event. It can be a breakfast that you host every month, bringing together top talent, senior talent. You can bring together your Mercedes, your Gymsharks, you can bring your top revenue-generating accounts in a room. Let's talk about the problems that you guys are facing now. Okay, you've scaled. Okay, you're making serious money. What are the things that are bothering you? We've already done this. Our VCs are in the room, too. Let's have that conversation. I think you don't have to start big. You could start really small for a scale-up and say, “Hey, I'm going to email 50 people. I'm going to start a community, and I want you to join and tell us what you want, what do you think?” Keep it small. 

[00:41:17] SAMANTHA LOSEY: It’s so funny that you say that. Literally, I have just done this. I've just literally decided that we're going to have this Dangerous Woman club. You a 100% now have to be a member. 

[00:41:26] DEVONNE SPENCE: Wow. 

[00:41:27] DOM HAWES: I got to say, I want to be a member. 

[00:41:30] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You can be a supportive man. 

[00:41:32] DOM HAWES: Okay. 

[00:41:32] DEVONNE SPENCE: Dangerous, dangerous supportive man. 

[00:41:34] DOM HAWES: I think I'm highly supportive. Exactly. I'm a man of a certain age as well, if I have to say. 

[00:41:38] SAMANTHA LOSEY: You are indeed. I rarely see you in a gilet, though. That’s something. 

[00:41:43] DOM HAWES: That's true. Yeah. 

[00:41:44] DEVONNE SPENCE: I never want to see a gilet again. 

[00:41:46] SAMANTHA LOSEY: They’re scarring. They’re scarring. 

[00:41:48] DEVONNE SPENCE: Oh, my God. 

[00:41:49] DOM HAWES: Okay, ladies. Enough of that. 

[00:41:52] DEVONNE SPENCE: Dangerous Women. 

[00:41:53] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Dangerous Women. Invited. 

[00:41:56] DEVONNE SPENCE: I want to know. 

[00:41:56] DOM HAWES: Also, a very valid now member of Unicorny community. 

[00:42:00] DEVONNE SPENCE: Very exciting. 

[00:42:00] DOM HAWES: Devonne, thank you very much indeed for that. 

[00:42:02] DEVONNE SPENCE: Thank you. 

[00:42:03] DOM HAWES: I feel like, I don't want this to stop, but I think we have to. Because otherwise, it’s going to be the longest podcast in history. I'm going to put you on the spot to finish, though, because I've got 10. I said I write down 10 takeaways. I'm going to rattle through them. I'd like you to pick your number one. 

[00:42:16] DEVONNE SPENCE: Okay. 

[00:42:17] DOM HAWES: Okay. Lean on your funders for PR, number one. Number two, focus on your product, but not till it's ready. Number three, employer branding is really important. Number four, be prepared to say no. Number five, make sure you're measuring, because measurement matters. Number six, make sure you can act locally. Number seven, lots of stuff that pitches itself as thought leadership isn't. Number eight, focus on what works. Right now, physical works. Number nine, you have to be at peace with uncertainty and change if you're in a scale-up. Number 10, don't let the momentum gap get too big, or things start to fail. Right, there's 10. That’s just 10. There are another 10. Those are 10 of the takeaways we have from today's conversation. 

[00:43:02] SAMANTHA LOSEY: We’re getting gold today. We’re getting gold. 

[00:43:04] DOM HAWES: There’s one piece. I know they are. Yeah. If there's one piece of advice, what would it be? 

[00:43:07] DEVONNE SPENCE: I would say, number nine. Is that you as well? 

[00:43:12] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah, it was. I was I was thinking about, no. I was about learning to say no, but then it was no, a 100% number nine. 

[00:43:18] DEVONNE SPENCE: Yeah, definitely. 

[00:43:20] DOM HAWES: You have to be at peace with change and uncertainty. 

[00:43:22] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Yeah. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable, as you said. 

[00:43:24] DEVONNE SPENCE: 100%. It's totally fine. It's like when I was in banking, everything was a little bit slower and it was fine. You knew what was going to happen at certain points of the year. It's just much more of a roller coaster and you've got to just get on board with it. 

[00:43:37] SAMANTHA LOSEY: Lean in, then you’re going to love it. 

[00:43:37] DEVONNE SPENCE: Exactly, I think, yeah, that’s it. 

[00:43:40] DOM HAWES: Fabulous. 

[00:43:41] DEVONNE SPENCE: Thank you. 

[00:43:42] DOM HAWES: Thank you very much.