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How Simple Ops Moves
Rocketed Our Profits
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Who dat Lisa Paasche?
• Founder & CEO of Verve Search – SEO & Digital PR Agency
• Won 50+ awards, incl Best SEO Agency 3 Years running
• Sold Verve to Omnicom Media Group in 2017, exited in 2021
• Mentor & Advisor to Agency & Tech Leaders @EKTE
• Neuroscience and Psychology Enthusiast
• Standup Comedian @StandupLisaMay
• Podcast Host & Producer @Am I Crazy? Or…
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Founded Verve in January 2009
• Started off doing SEO, PPC, Analytics & Socia Media
• Had my second child in 2010
• Profitable each year
• By 2014 we were 22 people
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By end of 2014 profits were a bit shit
10%
profit margin
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Tech SEO
10%
On Page
20%
Off Page
70%
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74
websites
everything
else
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We had to change strategy,
think smarter!
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When everyone draws CROSSES – draw a CIRCLE
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January 2015, I made 40% of the agency redundant
and closed down the “content” team
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The idea was that we had to create creative
campaigns on par with creative agencies to
get the best possible links
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we reframed and used the slogan:
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“WE THINK LIKE
50s AD EXECS & EXECUTE LIKE GEEKS”
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We hired designers, developers, copywriters and
set up an outreach team (digital PR)
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We would get coverage on TV
TV3 (Sweden)
NBC
ITV
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Shared by global organisations
Greenpeace
WWF
NASA
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We went from 10% profit margin
to 39%
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To 39% profit margin in just two years!
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And in
September 2017
Verve Search
sold to Omnicom
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Let me tell you what we did and how
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1
Financial Forecasting
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Using Management Accounts for financial
decisions is madness
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Hybrid Forecast & Management Accounts
– becomes more accurate as year goes by
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2
compulsory time tracking with
time sheets
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Made timesheets part of the
performance review process.
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We used Harvest + Python to import data
into Google Sheets
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Now I would use Ai (obviously)
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3
Analysing capacity utilisation
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Be Realistic With Capacity – Deduct and Deduct Again!
+ No one is ever 100%
efficient and ON!
75% max
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Not All Teams Are Billable
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Billed Vs Actual Time
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Billed Vs Actual - By Department
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Some are notoriously hard to charge for
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Some Departments Should and CAN be improved
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Some Departments Are Clearly More Profitable
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Transparency
Help them understand the business.
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No Change Board
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Link Score, Link Bell & White Whale
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4
Focus on retaining and growing
existing clients
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Multi Markets and Multi Vertical Clients
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It takes time to get to efficient delivery
with any client
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5
Saying NO when budget or ”fit”
wasn’t right
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3 RULES of New Business
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1. Get Results
2. Money (actual profit!)
3. Learn Something
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6
Recruiting & developing PEOPLE
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I had to be honest with my strengths &
weaknesses
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Finding the yin to my yang
- but making sure our values alligned
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Recruiting for GRIT not experience
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The advantage of disadvantages
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Different job ads for the same job
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Rehauled HR & Review Process
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Managing people isn’t for everyone.
Yet managing people is the only way
to the top in most companies.
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Single Contributor Track
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Pathways to promotion
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Performance Review Process
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Having a scoring metric that
was the same for everyone
increased accountability
Manager and Self
Assessment –compare
No self assessment = no
review
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Scandinavian Transparency on Salaries
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Encourage Connection
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LOVE Week – a 3 year experiment
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1. Everyone picked a name at random
2. Do something nice for that person
every day for a week (without them
knowing it is you)
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Friday Reveal
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And that is how…………
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We went from this
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to this…