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How honest is too honest? HLabs spills all at Agency Hackers Ibiza Conference
Last week, I found myself in Ibiza with 200 fellow agency owners, standing up on stage at Ibiza Summit, sharing some of the most intimate stories of my entrepreneurial journey. I spoke probably too honestly about mistakes I’ve made since founding HLabs, mistakes that were painful, mistakes that were just ridiculous, and some just goddam embarrassing.
With feedback ranging from "you're a total firecracker" to more heartwarming comments like "totally inspiring" I'm weighing up how honest is too honest in leadership and peer-to-peer presentations.
This article is to share a little about what I learned about myself, some self-evaluation, and the power of authenticity in business. Here are my biggest takeaways from my experience. To the other agency owners. I really hope it helps!
Trenton sharing his stories about his previous mistakes!
What were the mistakes I hear you cry?
Well, here goes with my top five... and let's hope there are some actionable suggestions and helpful takeaways too!
1. For the first two years, I paid hefty amounts of tax for upfront retainers that hungover to the next financial year.
I got a business coach (through Action Coach, and is now hired in my business full time) that saved £60k in tax by explaining the concept of ‘deferred revenue'. In summary, go and get financial advice if you don't have the know-how or experience yourself!
2. In year one, we took on an outsourced agency last minute to finish a job we'd not scoped correctly, without references. We couldn't manage changing expectations and lost money on the job to meet the deadline.
We have now implemented better vetting processes when using freelancers, things like doing paid trials and double-checking their references and testimonials. We called the client and admitted our defeat immediately and rescoped the project and delivery date. Only because of the trust and relationship built with the client, we were able to laugh and log it under 'learnings for next time', and still deliver an amazing project that won us more work in the long run.
3. We underpriced a scope by £8,000 due to adding up the bill wrong on a pitch deck. Doh!
We now do ‘all the maths’ on Excel with accurate calculations and embed the live document into our interactive pitch decks so clients can tick and cross menu offers to tailor their own deals there and then. Our transparency of pricing won us the Hilton Grand Vacations account!
4. We used a freelancer to create an interactive leaving card, who got excited and spent at least a week on it, costing over £500.
Always set time and cost expectations on 'nice to have' internal projects. Have a project manager watch the budgets the same as anything else! Luckily, the leaving card was sooooo creative that we've actually used it in pitches to win more work with gaming companies!
5. Now for the personal one - meeting up with previous colleagues at existing agencies to prove how well I've done…sigh.
Changing my mindset to not caring what others think about me was the single most influential change to my leadership style. My motivation now is to prove to my team I can be better and achieve more with a positive goal-setting attitude rather than basing decisions on ego and self-promotion. Us agency owners do struggle with it…#BeHumble never made so much sense.
For more juicy ones that I shared at the conference over wine, you'll have to join our online, monthly 'Mistake Mapping' session on the last Thursday of the month at 11 am!
Does confidence & openness really make you a better leader?
One of the most important lessons I took away from the experience this year was how much happier and more confident I’ve felt in myself and my business, therefore making me more eager to share.
At last year's conference I was a little overwhelmed with the talent in the room, with agencies much bigger than mine with much more experience. But the second you're honest about your failures, you have people replying with support and understanding as they've all gone through it too. The real joy of Agency Hackers!
Instead of hiding behind our more polished, and definitely more corporate LinkedIn accounts, being vulnerable and “admirably honest" allowed me to connect with others on a much deeper level. It helped me reflect on my own journey with more kindness. By the end of the week, I started to think "Woah, I might actually have my shit together!"
I asked Ian Harris, Agency Hackers founder, what he thought:
"When you start off running an agency, you don’t really know what you’re doing. So until you get to a certain size, you’re kind of like a bandaged-up kamikaze pilot with missing teeth. Tired and dirty, you are always being dragged in 100 directions – taking off on random missions at a moment's notice. But as you grow, things get smoother. You become a team of handsome BA pilots. Starched uniforms and perfect smiles, operating on greased grooves, taking off and landing exactly on time. The problem is – how you actually go on that journey from scrappiness to professionalism isn't really defined anywhere. There is no blueprint. It involves a lot of wrong turns and mistakes.”
Does honesty help attract clients?
Hand on heart I can say, yes, it does. My biggest client to date said we won a pitch because “Oh my lord, I just thought, you're just as crazy as me!”
Being completely transparent, especially about the mistakes I’ve made, has had a surprising impact on how clients perceive me and my agency. We always share how we’ve learned and grown from those experiences, and clients see us as more relatable and trustworthy.
Three ways we share learnings with clients:
- Post-project review write-ups from my team are emailed monthly.
- 'Fail forward' meetings before we start a partnership and address the possible 'red flags' we can foresee. Ask what previous agencies messed up before, and make sure you don't repeat it.
- Dial-in check-in is just me and the key client (without the team present) to get the 'real' feedback from them about where we need to improve.
It turns out that people are more interested in working with agencies that aren’t afraid to admit their flaws, and who have the resilience to come out stronger on the other side.
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Does this honesty help your team?
Every single day.
Sharing my failures also made me reflect on the culture I’m building within my agency. If I can be this open about my mistakes, why shouldn’t my team be? I want to encourage my team to take risks, make mistakes, and most importantly, learn from them.
Here are a few ways we've opened up with the team.
Always find the opportunity
Recently we lost £7149 on a project. Instead of being upset about the loss of money, I was more concerned about lowering the morale of the team so we used AI to generate a song about it!
Read about that whole process here. The song's pretty catchy!
Find ways to be open:
I got really obsessed with finding ways to get more introverted team members to open up about what they struggled with. We created this beautiful AI-assisted deck of HLabs Pokemon Cards. We even got them printed to share our strengths & weaknesses on a team day out. My weakness wasn't easy to admit that I'm TERRIBLE at active listening. They now have permission to pull me up on it!
Constantly listen & support
The fear of failure can paralyse creativity and growth, but when we’re all honest and supportive, we can make room for innovation. Mistakes only become failures if we don’t use them as opportunities to grow.
This experience in Ibiza reaffirmed something I’ve known but hadn’t fully embraced until now: honesty is one of the most powerful tools for leadership and business growth. If you’re an agency owner who’s ready to embrace vulnerability, foster a more authentic work environment, or simply want to connect with like-minded leaders, let’s have a conversation.
Then join our monthly new 'Mistake Mapping' session!
It’s time we all get a little more comfortable with being honest—even when it feels like too much. Join us monthly on the last Thursday of every month at 11am!
We’ll show ours if you share yours.
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