First things first. 2018 was a good year. The team grew, we added expertise, gained more experience, new clients came on board, and every single one of our clients had record-breaking years. How’s that for a stat!
Our success is born out of our passion for creating digital solutions that drive profit for our clients. That and the fact we are good at what we do; putting users at the heart of our thinking, creating incredible websites. Both of which are long-winded ways of saying the team are great.
Now we could have given the team a Xmas bonus to say thanks for all the hard work. But we didn’t. Harsh? Perhaps.
For us, it’s about practising what we preach. We love travel. We want to help the millions of people around the world find the holiday of their dreams, creating experiences they will never forget. This shouldn’t be any different for us. If we paid the team a bonus, it would be gratefully received no doubt — then probably spent on bills, maybe presents, or some January shopping. Then it would be forgotten.
Instead, we’ve decided to take the team away, so we are off to Iceland.
Photo by Nelly Volkovich on Unsplash
We’ve got the luxury of working with some incredible travel brands, in 2019 we decided to make the most of Where the Wild Is founder, Emma Durkin’s, Scandinavian expertise.
Taking the team away will help refocus the mind, it’ll create strong long-lasting relationships, we spend so many hours focusing on creating the best possible solutions for our clients, it’s easy to forget about really getting to know each other. As we continue to grow, relationships become even more important, keeping our culture were we empathetically challenge other is vital. This is much easier when the business is full of genuine friendships and mutual respect.
We will create memories that last a lifetime; Iceland is on the wishlist for a few of the team, so it’s amazing to be able to make this happen. We do believe that experiences are what makes us rich. The popular quote “Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times” rings true for us, we constantly create beautiful designs/run compelling campaigns that talk about Iceland, so it’s time we go and explore it for ourselves!
This trip will further help us engross ourselves in a clients business. We try to embed ourselves into all of our clients' businesses, we aim to know their customers, their journey’s, business KPI’s and digital performance as if we were an in house marketing and sales director. Living and breathing a brand provides exceptional performance. Each of the team genuinely care about the work they do and the impact it has on our clients business. Going on a client organised trip will only strengthen this bond.
The team need some R&R. Now we don’t tend to cap holidays, we encourage the team to travel as much as possible, but the fact is, everyone is working and it’s easy to get a little burnt out. So for us, this is the perfect opportunity to take a few days off, put our feet up, and chill…perhaps in a geo-thermal spa.
Photo by Tom Grimbert on Unsplash
As an agency, it will help us retain the best and attract the best talent. A core part of our proposition is that clients speak to every member of the team and that all team members are senior, they’ve been at big agencies, at big travel brands, they are great at what they do. It’s vital that we retain this talent, but equally to attract the next batch of superstars. Building stronger relationships and working to a common goal, then sharing in this success is important to us.
So here’s to a great trip, a big 2019 and some more exciting travel plans in the future! Thanks to all those that helped make 2018 such a great year. Any ideas on where we should go next year would be most welcome.
PS it’s probably worth unfollowing us on all social platforms if you aren’t happy to be spammed with beautiful Icelandic shots!