Show Notes
John Plato left school at fifteen and spent ten years as a diesel mechanic. In 2007 — at the kitchen table of a Linwood townhouse, with $3,500 in the bank and the GFC underway — he and his wife Lisa started an agency. Nearly twenty years later Plato is the South Island's largest full-service agency, and John is turning the derelict New City Hotel on Colombo Street into a 1,600sqm home for it.
This one goes deep on the commercial side of running an agency, and the honest parts most people leave out. John explains why Plato sets business strategy rather than just marketing — he sits on four of his clients' boards — and why the piece most agencies miss isn't creating demand, it's making sure the business can actually deliver on it.
He's also straight about the mistakes. Growing from 55 to 87 staff in six months during the COVID boom and making no more money at the bigger size. Five years of no holidays, living at the office. The six-month question he now asks his business partners: are we a better business than we were six months ago?
Plus: why he's never once looked at a qualification when hiring, what he'd tell a business two years in, and what's going inside the new HQ — gym, wellness centre with saunas and ice baths, a hidden whiskey room and a rooftop bar.
Find Plato Website: https://platocreative.co.nz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/platocreative Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/platocreative Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/platocreative Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Brought to you by Plato, the full-service marketing agency that drives real business performance. Connect with the team: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Margo Flanagan is co-founder and head of product at Two Raw Sisters, the recipe app and cookbook brand she runs with her sister Rosa. What began as two sisters finding their way back to good food after their own health journeys has become a household name: six cookbooks, an app built around swapping in whatever’s in your fridge, and an audience that’s 70% aged 50 and over. Margo and Andy cover how the business grew from a first cookbook that publishers expected to sell 400 copies (it sold 800 in the first hour), why they refuse to put macro breakdowns on recipes, and the “intelligently lazy” system of twenty minutes on a Sunday. Margo also explains how they’ve pivoted from cooking school to catering to web app to mobile app, why failing fast has been central to their success, and why they’ve deliberately chosen a manageable business over chasing $100 million. Plus her advice for any founder: find your North Star and say no to anything that doesn’t fit, even a $20,000 deal. Thanks again to Plato, helping ambitious brands and businesses scale faster through strategic full-service marketing. Find out how they can help you grow: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Recorded at Red Nine | businesses building Canterbury Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This episode is brought to you by Plato, the full-service marketing agency that drives real business performance. Connect with the team: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Business Canterbury has backed local businesses since 1859, and Chief Executive Leeann Watson says the region is doing better than most of the country right now. Andy sits down with Leeann to unpack what Business Canterbury actually does. That covers HR advice lines and training, the Canterbury Trusted endorsement, and lobbying Wellington on the things that hurt small businesses, like a provisional tax date in the middle of January. They get into why Canterbury is outperforming the other main centres: $13.1 million from one Super Round weekend at the new stadium, record university enrolments, and 43,000 people moving south since 2018. Leeann also explains Canterbury Ambition, a private-sector-led plan that brings 11 local authorities together around one ask of government. She shares how she protects time to work on the business rather than in it, and gives honest advice for anyone in their first couple of years of running a business. Find out more at businesscanterbury.co.nz or call 0800 50 50 96. Plato helps ambitious brands and businesses scale faster through strategic full-service marketing. Find out how they can help you grow: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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