“Don’t sell your business, get bought” was one of the standout messages from agency founders and leaders, who shared candid insights from their scaling journeys at the return of Prolific North’s From Growth to Gold event at KPMG’s Manchester offices yesterday.
Backed by headline sponsors KPMG and Glaisyers, alongside sponsors Propello Cloud and Synergist, the event saw agency experts share the realities behind leading their companies to acquisition, plus an insight into how agencies can diversify their models and unlock new revenue streams.
Chairing the day, Prolific North’s founding editor David Prior set the tone for the event designed to inspire agency leaders firmly in the thick of it, whether they are focused on sustainable scaling, seeking investment, or planning an eventual exit through a packed morning of keynotes and panels as well as afternoon roundtables, encouraging open, practical discussions for those in the room.
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Ben Taylor, partner at KPMG, kicked things off by setting out the current state of M&A activity, reflecting back on the update he delivered at last year’s From Growth to Gold event in Leeds.
“We’re certainly feeling a little bit more bullish about what we’re seeing in the market,” he said, pointing to increased appetite from investors in the digital and media space.
He said investment activity and M&A seem to be “picking up”, highlighting some of the recent deals KPMG has advised on, including the sale of SheerLuxe to Future and the acquisition of Digital Voices by global marketing agency PMG.
On trends, he said there is increasing interest in businesses that are data-led or those using AI to drive content or predictive targeting. The “big question” people are now asking is how SEO and PPC work is going to be impacted by what’s happening in AI.
“It’s got to be on your terms”
The opening keynote came from Chris Attewell, former CEO of Search Laboratory, who now advises agency leaders on their own paths to growth, drawing on his 25 years in the industry.
He reflected back on his first ever job, cold calling pest controllers to sell electric fly killers, armed with little more than a Yellow Pages book. That early experience in sales has carried right through his career and he has “always had a commercial growth background”.
Attewell then charted his journey scaling Leeds-based Search Laboratory into an international business, growing it to 150 people across the Leeds and Austin in the US, before its acquisition by Havas Group in 2022.
Founded in 2006 by Ian Harris, the agency initially carved out a “niche”, offering multilingual PPC services, gaining “real traction” before expanding into digital PR and later embracing paid social and programmatic advertising. The agency’s growth accelerated rapidly, with the business scaling from 30 to 150 people in just two years as it navigated the waves and helped shape wider shifts in the market.
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A key part of that evolution was a willingness to keep moving. “We always looked for an opportunity to do something new and different,” he said, pointing to the agency’s move to become a Google Marketing Platform sales partner as another strategic step forward.
After Harris stepped back, Attewell took over as CEO in 2018 and began exploring M&A the following year, speaking to lots of potential buyers. The process was well underway when Covid hit, forcing them to pause their discussions. Post-Covid, the team refocused on performance before re-entering the market, ultimately leading to the Havas deal.
Following a two-year earnout, Attewell exited the business last year and it has since been rebranded as Havas Market. Reflecting on what made Search Laboratory into a growth success story, he set out four core pillars: taking good care of clients; maintaining an “unashamed” focus on new business; continuing to innovate; and investing in and taking care of the team.
“As soon as you stop doing any one of those four things, it’s like a house that just falls over because they’re all interdependent,” he explained.
And when Search Laboratory went to market, what resonated most with buyers wasn’t just revenue, but the fundamentals: strong client retention, a predictable pipeline, and a stable, and experienced leadership team, with “no skeletons” in the accounts.
For Attewell, if leaders build a business that is high-growth, innovative, profitable, forward-looking and a genuinely good place to work, the rest follows.
“Then you have a good business that a lot of people will want to buy, then you’ll have the choice of who you want to sell it to and do it more on your terms.”
He also challenged the misconception of the term ‘sales ready’ and said it is all about “having choices”. “Revenue and enterprise value matter,” he said. “But it’s got to be on your terms.”
And while it’s not always easy to grow quickly, he was clear which side he’d rather be on.
“Growing really fast can bring challenges or barriers that you have to overcome. But any challenge related to growing a business is nothing compared to the challenges you have if you’re not growing.”
Agency to product
The first panel session brought together three perspectives on what it really takes to spin a solution out of an agency, and what comes next.
For Martin Meadows, who has spent 30 years at Workhouse, the move into product began in a familiar way: solving a client problem.
When Mark Camp, now CEO and founder of Propello Cloud, returned to the agency after a period away to look after his first child, his sales-driven approach naturally complemented Meadows’ creative focus, and the opportunity to build something together quickly took shape.
Propello Cloud, now a white-label loyalty platform, initially started out as a way for Workhouse to deliver client loyalty at scale. The early signs were promising and pitches in London suggested there was lots of demand for it.
“We thought we were off to the races,” Meadows said. “Then Covid hit.”
The team decided to separate the new venture from the agency, protecting the “mothership” while giving the platform space to develop on its own.
For Camp, it was perfect timing for him to take Propello Cloud forwards and the “stars aligned” as he had become “a little burnt out” from the agency world. “It was a shiny new object for me,” he said. “It was an opportunity to build something that already had real traction with some exciting businesses.”
One of the biggest lessons came from funding and structure. Camp and Meadows offered up some crucial advice for others looking to go along a similar path: get the structure right early, from equity splits to the legal set-up, or be prepared to fix it later.
Claire Williamson, founder & MD of B2B tech communications consultancy Resonance, offered a different perspective as Resonance has spun out its influencer intelligence platform, Agentcy, without rushing into external funding.
“The advice we’ve had is to hold off for as long as possible. We want to do it on our own terms – that’s really key for me.”
Her platform, designed to help clients track and manage their narrative across a fragmented media landscape, was built first for internal use and it remains closely tied to the agency, with client work and product development informing each other day to day.
While Workhouse and Propello now operate as separate businesses, Williamson has deliberately kept both the Resonance and Agentcy teams close to benefit from the platform’s efficiencies.
There was also a note of caution around AI as although it has made building products faster and more accessible, it has also lowered the barrier to entry.
“Make sure you’ve got people who actually know how to code,” Williamson said, warning against relying too heavily on quick fixes.
Their key advice for anyone looking to turn a side project into a standalone business was simple: build something that solves a real problem, test and refine it continuously, and stay close to your clients.
Growth to acquisition: “don’t sell your business, get bought”
The final panel of the day turned to one of the most talked-about moments in any agency journey: the path from growth to exit.
While Rob Shaw, CEO of HUB, detailed his experiences of navigating through multiple agency exits, Clair Heaviside shared how she has recently taken her agency Serotonin into its next chapter through acquisition, and is now part of independent agency Embryo.
From Latitude to Epiphany, Shaw first shared how his impressive career has been shaped by building agencies with a clear growth journey in mind but those experiences also revealed the importance of choosing the right buyer.
When selling Leeds digital marketing agency Epiphany to Jaywing, the focus wasn’t just on valuation but also on legacy, what would happen next for the team, and how the business would continue to grow.
That meant creating something bigger than the founders themselves. A strong senior leadership team, capable of running the agency independently, became a key part of the story told to buyers. After helping to successfully scale numerous Northern agencies, on what keeps him coming back to the agency world as he has been at the helm of Leeds-based integrated agency HUB as CEO for the past three years, he says speaking to clients, learning about their businesses, nurturing teams and mentoring teams is what gets him out of bed every morning.
For Heaviside, she revealed Serotonin reached a point where the next stage of growth required something more so she started looking at options with her co-founder, Dom Carter. When Serotonin went to market, she reflected on what really matters in a deal, stressing that a seamless transition in culture, leadership alignment and shared ambition with the right people were all critical factors.
She revealed the importance of building her personal brand alongside her fellow co-founder, making sure people knew who the Serotonin team were, their values, and how they worked. They continuously communicated that with their network while supporting other agencies, and saw “real value” in doing so, which helped in conversations when it came to selling.
The deal with Embryo felt “really natural” and their personalities fit, as the duo had already become good friends with Embryo’s CEO, Ross Green. They are now just over 25 days in and the team has fully transitioned over, with Heaviside now “excited” to focus on growing the agency’s creative offering as chief creative officer.
“I very much have this opportunity to be a founder within an established, leading independent performance agency by building out a creative offering and that has caused real excitement across the whole agency,” she said, on the big opportunity in adding to Embryo’s growth trajectory.
For both leaders, being prepared was a key theme in the path to acquisition. Reflecting on Attewell’s earlier keynote session, they agreed that building a “sale-ready” business isn’t just about hitting financial targets. It’s also about creating something sustainable and attractive from every angle.
Shaw summed it up in one sentence: “Don’t sell your business. Get bought.”
He advised leaders to focus on building and if it’s a strong enough business, the right opportunities will follow, and that brings choice as competitive tension, multiple interested buyers, and clarity on what you want from a deal, which puts agency leaders in a much stronger position when the time comes to look at growth or exit options.
The duo also discussed what “growth” actually means in today’s market. Headcount alone is no longer a reliable measure of success for agencies anymore, and whether it’s revenue, profit, specialism or scale, clarity on ambition is essential.
“Whether it’s a 50 person agency or a 700 person agency, standing still won’t work,” said Shaw.
“We’ve got to have a growth mentality, whether that’s growing what you have or winning new clients; if you try to stand still, you will just go backwards.”
For agencies navigating their own path to acquisition, the takeaway was not just about building for exit, but about building well. Get the fundamentals right, understand what you want, and be honest about the trade-offs.
The event wrapped up with a series of themed roundtables with industry experts, where attendees were able to privately discuss everything from agency M&A, creating and maintaining value in your agency to get the best exit, scalability for saleability, and tips on accelerating growth.
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