Business & management
January 2012
The Unprincipled
The Unvarnished Truth About Running A Marketing Agency From Start-up To Sell-out
by David Croydon
Building a business from start-up to sell-out. When I started, or at least co-founded, a small sales promotion agency called Marketing Principles in Oxford over 20 years ago, I had no idea about the dramas that would ensue, or the mixture of fun and games and pain and heartache that could be telescoped into 12 short years. I needed to get a lot of this off my chest for cathartic and purely selfish reasons, but in doing so, and in my current role as small business advisor/coach/mentor/NEC, I realised along the way that the lessons learned might be instructive as well as just entertaining, which is where it originally started. The title is taken from the scurrilous in-house ‘newsletter’ our creative department took to compiling a couple of times a year, to debunk any of our employees who… oh, just anyone who worked for us (including me). We begin the journey in 1985. The key protagonists (at the beginning) all have gainful employment at another local agency, and on the face of it should be content with their lot. But then this thing called ambition comes knocking, and a 12-year roller coaster ride begins. A couple of reviewers have described the content as part business handbook, part memoir, part comic novel, which makes it difficult to categorise in publishing terms. Its style and tone of voice is what makes it unique, and it will appeal to small business owner/managers - from start-ups to established businesses - anywhere: they will recognise many of the issues and problems that we confronted along the way. So it's a personal account, but one that will resonate with anyone who has ever run a small business (or aspires to). Here's a video about the business that is the book's subject matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2_heofh0WE
