Growing an Agency Without Following the Rules

Adam Cooper (00:02.054) Okay, so today I'm joined by Gulliver Moore, the founder and CEO of Sunday Treat, a creative content agency that helps brands create work that's fun, engaging, and launched the platform and the company a few years ago. So it's great to have you on the podcast. Welcome to the Fractional CFO show.

Gulliver, how are you doing today? Gulliver Moore (00:22.018) Very well. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam Cooper (00:23.956) Well, thank you so much for being here. Really looking forward to this one. And we're yeah, we're talking about how to launch and grow an agency without following the rules.

obviously your career's been quite an interesting one and you've you've moved about, which is which is great. So maybe give the audience in a couple of minutes a bit of a potted history of how you've got to where you've got to. Gulliver Moore (00:46.104) course.

So I graduated from Bournemouth University studying television production and then I did ten years as a freelance director, which I really enjoyed. I had a director the OP partnership with my best friend Ollie Club and we were just doing more and more work in the commercial sector, really enjoying it and eventually ended up forming Sunday Treat five years ago now. And it's been amazing since then. We had a really strong start.

It's been twenty percent growth year on year since then in terms of rough headcount in terms of turnover. And now we're working with some of the world's biggest clients on some really amazing projects. We work with clients like Google, Revolute, Candy Crush, Canon, and we have a great time doing it. It's just so fun.

Adam Cooper (01:29.522) Amazing, amazing. And well that's quite quite the the background and and obviously seeing that growth and seeing how you've been able to work with such high quality brands and I saw the other day you were at the Toy Story Five premiere, which looked like great fun. so I it'd be great to understand a little bit about you know what made you decide to start the agency.

Obviously you you said you're having a great time with your friend doing the director DOP stuff. So why start an agency? Why start a a a company? Gulliver Moore (01:42.

381) Yeah. Gulliver Moore (01:59.852) It I think there was a bit of a tipping point where it felt like I was putting a lot of work out to freelancers and we were juggling so much, and I was in my late twenties really overworking, working into the evenings, and it just felt like we had enough work on that it needed to be more formalized. So we reached that tipping point.

I decided I'm gonna take on one person full-time. That was an editor, and he was Fab. And I kind of felt like once I was responsible for someone every single day, I needed to. Put in place a proper company so we put in place values, we put in place a culture, we put in place performance development review processes because I felt like we wanted to do right by even just that one person that we hired.

We wanted to do things properly, and actually, we enjoyed that more than we thought, and it felt like it felt quite natural. And then once we had all those things in place, it felt like it was relatively easy to then start expanding the company more and hiring more people. And we actually went from one person to five in the first year, which was quite a jump. but yeah, it really it really just felt felt right and it just kind of slowly grew from there.

But I I wouldn't say there was any intention to start a a full on agency. It was just kind of one step at a time really. Adam Cooper (03:17.376) Amazing.

And what what was it that I guess going from one to five, that's a real business, right? I mean, in that first year and particularly having been just the two of you for so long, was was that the moment where it started to feel real, like that sort of that hiring uplift, or was there another moment that it really kind of became a real thing for you? Gulliver Moore (03:38.016) Gosh, there's so many moments.

I I mean it doesn't feel like you're doing that much on a day to day basis and it can sometimes feel really frustrating that you're not making the progress you want to make. But then when you actually look back, and I did this recently because I made a little video about five years of Sunday treat, it really is amazing to see how far you've come. And I think you really underestimate, you know, what you can do in a a long amount of time. And yeah, I mean I I guess one specific moment was we w winning the drum award in twenty twenty four for agency of the year.

That was really nice because I'd followed the drum my whole professional career and it felt like a really amazing moment of recognition. it felt like you know those people who hold the doors they kind of finally open them a little bit for us which was really nice. But yeah just just is it's little moments, you know, every day that keep you going, especially when it's a project-based world that we work in. Adam Cooper (04:26.

024) Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And was there a sort of anything that you kind of underestimated about starting a business and running an agency versus your your previous career? Gulliver Moore (04:37.

656) Yeah, being manager, honestly. And I wasn't a very good manager at the start. You know, I I did try my best, but I I I let my team down. In those early years, I think I wasn't as candid as I should have been.

I wasn't as direct and I wasn't as proactive. And I think me and Ollie, we've learned a lot of lessons since then and and we're really much stronger now. But yeah, I mean it it's you know, it's that classic thing, isn't it? You're you're good at doing a certain thing, like making films, you you you work on that your whole professional career and whether you're starting a company or you're stepping into a management role later in your career it doesn't necessarily mean you have any of the prerequisites for the skills to actually be in that management role.

And yeah since then you know we've read a ton of books and you know up skilled a lot and yeah I think we're much better now but still have a lot to learn. Adam Cooper (05:25.256) Yeah, absolutely. As you say, you don't your previous career doesn't train you to be the manager.

You need to learn on the job a little bit, particularly in your own company where there's no one else to sort of lean on. So no, absolutely. And was there anything from your previous career? Obviously you're in a an associated sort of business, but was there anything that you learned from the career?

management maybe not, but anything else that's helped you in in running the company over the last five years? Gulliver Moore (05:31.181) Yeah, yeah. Gulliver Moore (05:50.

925) Yeah, I'd say the fact that I kind of know how to do a lot of the stuff that the team does is both a help and a hindrance. Like editing is a really good example. I'm a good editor and I love editing. I just don't get to do it that much anymore.

And I often see edit requests come in or I I see a brief come in and I kind of formulate what I would do in my mind if I was the one sat behind Premiere Pro in that moment. And I think I always go with a very optimistic point of view, as if nothing would go wrong, everything would be delightful, it would be easy peasy, I'd do it in an hour. And obviously that's not the reality and I think that that can sometimes cause pressure and I think I need to just like slow down and think about how you know everybody works differently and it's you know very rarely a dream scenario.

but I think yeah I think the team appreciate that Ollie and I come from a filmmaking background probably just as much as they find it annoying. Adam Cooper (06:44.968) I love that. I love that.

And it's it's always difficult to tell the boss no. So like you're having I love the fact that you're aware of that and that you're you're trying to work on that yourself, so that's cool. good. Gulliver Moore (06:53.

529) no, no, people tell us no all the time. yeah, I love it. It's great. That's a really good thing.

Adam Cooper (06:58.336) Good, good. And one of the things that we when we were talking before this that caught my attention was your decision to sort of ignore the advice to niche down. So you know, often the sort of the accepted wisdom is that you focus on a niche and your decision has been to to stay sector agnostic as you sort of outlined with some of your your clients earlier.

You know Could you give us a bit of a sort of rationale around why you decided to avoid niching down? And and ha I guess the follow-up question is have you ever been tempted to? Gulliver Moore (07:30.423) Yeah, so as you say, the traditional business advice is to find a sector that you specialise in.

So as an example, within the filmmaking world, I go to these agency events and they say, don't just make films, make films only for firms that handle pensions. And further than that, only for firms that handle pensions with companies of five hundred plus in the northeast of England. and the idea there, of course, is that if you do exactly that, you're the only company doing it, you do it the best out of anyone, you can charge what you want, right? But not only do I think Tricky in a business sense because you leave yourself quite unprotected if you lose key clients or if the industry changes, which obviously it is a lot at the moment, but also that's just so boring.

And Sunday tree is about finding the fun in our work. That is literally our tagline. And I don't feel like we would have a really highly skilled, incredible bunch of people wanting to work with us like we do if we were just doing the same thing over and over again. So we've really enjoyed staying completely sector agnostic.

We literally do everything from small Charity projects right up to huge TV commercials in sectors like tech, FMCG, healthcare, travel, you name it. And it's so fun doing all these different types of projects and in different types of ways as well, because every project demands a different type of process, which I think keeps the team really on their toes and engaged in a really great way. Adam Cooper (08:53.082) no that's really useful advice.

And and do you think that's had a knock on effect on your ability to retain staff? You mentioned you went from one to five. I think you've said fourteen at the moment. Has that has there been a lot of churn in the people that you've had?

Has everyone stuck with you? And do you think that this decision has helped with that? Gulliver Moore (09:10.87) I think we've had a really healthy amount of churn.

I think God, churn's a horrible word, isn't it? It's Adam Cooper (09:15.904) It's very impersonal. I d I agree ya.

I I'll take it back. any change of personnel, yeah. Gulliver Moore (09:22.798) It's been it's been a couple of years now since someone's left Sunday Treat actually.

and you know, I I think it's healthy to have a certain amount of client sorry, I think it's healthy to have a certain amount of team turnover. but I, you know, I'm thrilled at the fact that nobody's left for for such a long time. And yeah, I I think that that speaks to the culture of the team. We are quite an in person group.

We go in twice a week, but on top of that we have a lot of film shoots that we're out and about on and it means there's a lot of time for the team to to bond and I really think that people say it's Sunday treat because of the other people and and the culture that we've got. Yeah, it's a kind of magic thing that's hard to put your finger on exactly why it works, but it really does. I think we've been great at picking the right people and knowing what the Sunday treat energy is.

And yeah, I really think that's the reason people stay. I mean the you know the projects are really, really cool as well, but it's got to be the people right. Adam Cooper (10:16.168) Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And do you think in terms of that approach of staying broad, has that made winning the work harder? like in terms of sort of you don't necessarily have, you know, trends to follow as extensively as if you were niche down? Gulliver Moore (10:27.693) Yeah.

Yeah, I think it has made especially at the start winning the h work harder because we haven't always had exact exam examples of what we have done before. Clients often want to see just exactly what you've done before as an example of what they want to do in the future, which I totally get because it's all about risk management when you're choosing an agency. And if you make the wrong choice, then you know, your your decision's on the line. Ultimately a big part of what we do is to create great work, but also a big part is to make our clients look good as well.

And you know, a really easy way. Actually, do you mind if I redo this one? Is that all right? I wouldn't add it.

But could you ask the question one more time? Adam Cooper (11:05.408) Yeah, you go for it. Adam Cooper (11:09.

47) Yeah, I'll try and remember it exactly as I said it. I think the do you think that you know you mentioned about staying broad and has that made winning the work harder in terms of the fact that you haven't been sector specific? Gulliver Moore (11:12.067) Yeah.

Gulliver Moore (11:25.494) Yeah, I think definitely the start, it made winning the work a lot harder because we didn't always have an example of what it was that the client wanted to put together. It's always a real big risk taking on a new agency. And I think that clients often want to mitigate that risk by choosing someone who has done exactly the same thing before, which of course is another advantage if you are that niche agency that does the same thing over and over again.

And if you're doing something new and the client and the agency hasn't got an example of that exact thing before, it it is a risk. But I think that the problem. Portfolio of work that we've built up over the last five years is really quite incredible. And so now if any client comes along to us, you know, whether they're in food and beverage or automotive, we've got a great reference for it.

And they might need to use their imaginations a little bit because we always try and make something new. We don't want to be repeating the same thing over and over again. But ultimately, you know, we take them on that journey with us, and yeah, it it goes it goes really well. Adam Cooper (12:21.

296) Excellent. And we have a sort of a a nice healthy mix of people who are in the audience for this for this pod, some agency owners who are starting up. and for those people, what advice would you give with them, you know, they'll have obviously read the same books and followed the same advice about niching down, you know. What advice would you give to them starting out today and wrestling with that same decision?

Gulliver Moore (12:43.924) it the decision of niching or not niching. Adam Cooper (12:46.569) Yeah, yeah.

Gulliver Moore (12:47.83) Yeah. I guess it's it's what you're doing it for, you know. If you want to build an agency to sell, maybe it is a good idea to niche and you know, you come up with a process that you can then step away from.

I feel like that is probably quite a good idea if you want clients on retainers, you want a process that is literally very formulaic when a new client comes in and then they they run through the system and you don't have to be super involved in it. But we're a creative agency. I think the creative talent at Sunday Treat is the most important thing. Ollie and I really enjoy being quite hands-on with the projects and also very hands-on with the client relationships as well.

So we have really enjoyed helping steer the ship in the right direction. So for us it's it's really worked, but it it depends what your end goals are. and I I've always felt like Sunday tree is is my identity and I can't really imagine life without it. So you know we we do it for the love every day, really.

Adam Cooper (13:44.287) Nice, nice. okay, great. And I I just wondered you touched on there about Oli and you mentioned that obviously you were working together previously.

How as the business has grown, how do you divvy up the work and the responsibilities? Do you kind of have separate areas of responsibility and how does that look like at the moment? Gulliver Moore (14:03.084) Yes, great question.

We are very similar in lots of ways and we make a great team, but we also have some really key strengths and weaknesses that we that we lean into to to help everything. I think I am much more interested, better, more focused on new business and networking and growing the team in terms of, you know, strategy and the services that we offer. And Ollie is fantastic with the team that we have. making sure the culture.

is as good as it can be and executing projects to an incredibly high creative level. so I would say that we can both do everything and and we like to share our problems and get involved in everything that we do. We're we're both going to this big pitching event on Monday and we're literally splitting up the clients we're pitching to 50-50. but there is a just a slight difference in in terms of how we day sh in terms of how we spend our days in in those areas.

Yeah. Adam Cooper (15:04.36) Okay, great. No, it's so important, particularly where you've come from a similar background and the partnership you had before, so it's it's great that you've you've divided that up comfortably and and that kind of takes us on to the commercial reality, I guess, of of running a creative agency.

And often from the outside it can look great and very glamorous, but i you know, it's it can be sort of quite complex in the background. And you you alluded to the challenges around project based revenue earlier. So how How do you sort of forecast that at the moment, particularly in the current climate? How how do you kind of manage that pipeline of work and then seeing what's coming in terms of, you know, the revenue that you've got coming in?

Gulliver Moore (15:46.305) Yeah, so so we're really hot on the finances. We keep close attention to it, but we're at two million turnover now or just over, and we've got high operating costs. I think we're good at keeping those operating costs as low as possible, but there are certain things that you just have to roll with, everything from our camera equipment to our office to software licenses which add up, and of course the the team salaries, which is always by far the the biggest expense.

and we are Always busy for a couple of months in the calendar, and then everything after that is always completely silent because it's all project-based, it's often quite quick turnaround, and with a large team now, it's it's a scary way to run a business, it is, but I think it's what our clients need. None of our clients are interested in retainers, and to be honest, there are few that we are interested in retainers with because I think that. the project-based energy, it keeps everything fresh, it keeps everyone working to a really high standard.

If you're on a retainer with a client, you can get a bit complacent, you can get a little bit lazy with it, the relationship might end at a much shorter timeline. There's less difference between agency and in-house if you're working on a retainer. And I think that that project base, you know, it just means that every client when they come back to us, even if we work with them dozens of times before, we've got that same energy as if we were working with a new client and it makes it makes the work really, really great.

But yeah, it is i i it's a scary thing, but I've just got used to it, you know. And we just have that faith that the work's gonna keep coming in and and it does. Adam Cooper (17:21.472) It's worked for five years, so that's that's great.

And what like obviously yeah, you were you were previously working with Ollie just as a partnership, but what have been your biggest financial lessons as a founder since you started the company, would you say? Gulliver Moore (17:23.862) Exactly. Gulliver Moore (17:39.

981) Yeah, I'd say I mean, probably freelancing, you can, you know, probably earn more money than starting an agency because when you start an agency, you take on all these this this risk and all these expenses. but I think over time it just becomes for me, you know, by far the sensible most sensible d decision because you have a team and it's just so nice working with a team every day rather than yeah, working working on your own with all that pressure. And so it's so nice to kind of get into this routine of how you split things up with the team.

And every kind of problem is a shared problem. but yeah, well sorry, what was the question? That was a bit more, I feel like Yeah. Adam Cooper (18:15.

456) It's j just about the financial lessons that you've taken on over the last five years as a founder. Gulliver Moore (18:21.184) Yeah, yeah. I think yeah, financial in particular we probably could be a bit hotter on Chasing, you know, our invoices a little bit more and also sort of separating the client relationship from the finances is quite nice.

So we've got an amazing accounts person called John. it would have been nice if we brought on someone like that a little bit earlier and probably gave him more license to have a separate independent relationship with the client around the finances because it's always a tricky thing when you're sort of you you feel like you're polluting your brilliant relationship that you've put so much work into with the client when you're chasing them up for invoice. and asking for deposits and asking to sign contracts and things.

So it's quite nice to have that separation. I think that's something that we definitely could have done a lot earlier and actually to this day we we could be better at in general. Adam Cooper (19:07.54) No, I think that's so so true.

You do as a founder want to stay involved in the finances potentially longer than you need to. Not you personally, but in general, that's what we see. So having that sort of third party, that that employee or person who helps you kind of chasing invoices and keeping that relationship separate, as you say, i is exactly right. one thing you said there, which kind of is interesting, is obviously you've grown over the last five years.

You mentioned some large companies that you work with. And that can have an impact on cash flow and payment terms, particularly. you know, as you're you're growing and and also, and we'll come on to sort of expanding outside of the UK, payment terms can be very different in different territories. So does that keep you up at night, particularly with the the headcount that you've got and you know, a particular new client, maybe you know, 30 days, sixty days, ninety days, and it starts to get a bit bit worrying.

Does that how do you feel about that as you've grown? Gulliver Moore (19:38.894) Yeah. Gulliver Moore (19:47.

619) Yeah. Gulliver Moore (19:59.469) Yeah, yeah. Gulliver Moore (20:04.

268) Yeah, I I mean it's a discrepancy, isn't it, between we obviously pay our team every month and the freelancers we work with, of which there are many, many, we pay them within thirty days or less. Whether on the other the other side are clients, they can sometimes take ninety days or if I'm being totally honest, sometimes even up to a year to pay us. And you can only chase so hard because you don't want the relationship to deteriorate. So it can be a challenge and I think my advice is just to be extra, extra cautious.

So Whenever we're doing financial projections, we always take the really conservative route and assumption. We always assume that you know the worst is gonna happen. And we just make sure that we've got really good cash, you know, balance on hand so we can weather those storms. and yeah, so f so far it's it's all been okay.

but Yeah, I I think that you need to be cautious. You need to have a really good, comfortable, like, cushion. and that's been that's been hard for us because we're totally organically funded. We've literally never taken any funding at all.

so I th I think we've just sort of, yeah, slowly, slowly grown it and you know, where we've made mistakes like we've underscoped a project or over allocated resource to it, you know, we we remain committed and we finish it up and we just try and have a wash up and learn for next time. Adam Cooper (21:21.738) Hmm. No, that's great.

And some good lessons there for for anyone listening that I can echo. I think in terms of the one thing you said there, which I'd be interested to understand, is having that cash on hand, it it can work if you've got a regular size project, but as you're getting to the larger projects and potentially you've got a large outlay in terms of you know production equipment or you know, chutes, costs as you're as you're moving around. How how do you manage that? Is there any lessons that you can pass on in terms of how you manage that risk on the on the larger projects.

Gulliver Moore (21:54.285) Yeah, I I think don't take on something that you're not comfortable with and it and is a huge jump. Just try and have it increments over time. So we you know, we do sometimes say no to projects if they don't feel like the right client, the right fit.

But I think that just naturally over time the projects have grown. You know, at the start of the company it was on the lower end, you know, we were billing sort of five, ten, fifteen thousand on average for jobs. Now we're billing more like twenty five, fifty and many projects we do over a hundred thousand pounds throughout the year. And that has just kind of grown steadily over time.

And as we've done that, we've made sure that the the safety cushion that we've got has grown over time too. So I think it's just not rushing into anything, because you you're so right. So yeah, you just gotta be got to be really careful to what you're agreeing to really and make sure you've got a sharp eye on the finances, which we do. You know, we have weekly check-ins and and make sure we understand.

Yeah, where all the money is going. Adam Cooper (22:56.094) Nice. And do you have any and apologies for getting a bit business jargony, but any key performance indicators or any metrics that you track, specifically around you mentioned having that buffer, that cash in the bank.

Is there any number that you look at? Yeah, I mu we must have three months operating expenses covered by what we've got in the bank, for example. Gulliver Moore (23:18.68) Don't know the meaning of the word.

That sounds like some consultancy jargon to me. No, no, we don't. We genuinely don't. we we don't set goals at Sunday Tree either in terms of financial projections.

I feel like what's the point? You know, you're either gonna achieve the goal and feel like that could have been a bit higher, or you're not gonna achieve the goal and it's gonna make you feel a little bit gutted. So I think as long as we're growing, because I do think as a business you do need to be growing because your people need to be growing and they're not satisfied if they're not. So everything needs to be going Adam Cooper (23:24.

095) Yeah. Gulliver Moore (23:48.664) good rate, not not too fast, otherwise your culture can start to fragment. But I I don't really see the point in putting exact numbers on it.

yeah, I I j I just never have. Adam Cooper (23:58.591) No, that's that's gr that's great and it works for you and and and actually takes us nicely into our into our next section where I'd love to talk about I saw you've you've launched in the in the US, speaking of growing and and New York. Yeah, w can you tell us a little bit more about that?

What yeah, what prompted that right now? Gulliver Moore (24:15.042) So it felt like quite a natural evolution actually. We did about 40% of our work in the US last year, and it just naturally felt like more clients from the US were reaching out to work with us.

A lot of our UK clients had US branches that they were introducing us to. Maybe there's a bit more of a confident spending power that we felt in the US, particularly the work that we do in New York, LA, San Francisco. And we've been traveling out there a lot. I I was out there 10 times last year on projects, and it just felt like the right fit to for Formalize it.

So we've now got Sunday Treat established as an LLC in the in the US. We've got our IRS tax forms and we're good to go. And yeah, it's been it's been fab. We've already done lots of projects out there this year.

we've got an incredible creative director heading up, and yeah, it's it's going really strong. Adam Cooper (25:06.132) I've I've never heard the the expression IRS tax forms and good to go follow each other, but that's great, you know. I think it's no but it's it's Gulliver Moore (25:10.

958) Why is it that they're so scary? You just they're terrifying, aren't they, those three letters? Adam Cooper (25:16.902) It's it's the it's the yeah, it is.

It's the the authority and it's the bureaucracy, absolutely. But I I I I guess, you know, what great that you've got out there and you know, obviously makes makes a lot of sense if you've got such a large chunk of revenue coming from there. What what's been sort of the biggest surprise or what's what's been harder, perhaps than you expected and and I'll tell you why I asked, not wanting to be negative, but a lot of businesses that we work with talk about expanding to the US and often it's a little bit of a Gulliver Moore (25:21.

752) Yeah. Adam Cooper (25:45.748) you know, a blinkered view or or or a view of, you know, it's gonna be perfect. We expand to the US and then we go to Asia and then and it it can be a bit unrealistic.

So is there anything that's surprised you been slightly harder than you expected? Gulliver Moore (26:01.452) Yeah, it's it's not been an exact like for like formula. I think that we used to get a lot of our business in the UK from Outbound Lead Gen, specifically on email.

So we would send out thousands of emails every month and a small percentage of them would reply to us and that gave us an incredibly strong new business engine. It was really brilliant and one of the key successes with the early days of Sunday Treat. And we tried that new tactic with America and it didn't work. And I think that's not necessarily because of America.

I think it's because the whole outbound league game industry has has really changed because of AI in the last few years and people's inboxes are saturated, spam filters are so much better than they were, and we're just not cutting through in the way that we we were, because it's not working in the UK either. So that's been a bit of a moment of realisation this year because I think we became quite reliant and dare I say almost slightly complacent on that as our new business engine.

And we're now focusing on lots of Other different strategies for new beers. and it's been great that the company's been very heavily supported by our incredible returning clients you know, within that change. And yeah, we're we're seeing really good success now with our with our different tactics. And I think in the US in particular, a lot of it has come from referrals and organic instructions from UK branches, especially if you're working with an agency from a different country.

I think that that referral goes a a really long way. but I think the reason that we've been so requested in America is because we come in very, very cost-affordable whilst keeping our creative quality at incredibly high output because it's really expensive to get stuff done in America, and whenever we're hiring freelancers out there, it's it's really costly, it's really costly. But we are able to keep a lot of that pre-production, post-production in our UK office, and we're coming in at a really competitive price when you compare us to lots of the agencies in the US.

Adam Cooper (28:02.152) Nice. Now that that's great. And I guess something for you to consider and and for the audience to consider as you grow is maintaining that and being able to continue to develop business over there while while s potentially servicing it over here, you know, as long as the FX and currency works in your favour.

So so that's brilliant. And do you feel that the 'cause you mentioned from your side, your role is very much kind of around new biz and around networking and around sort of building the business. Has how's that been for you doing it remotely. You mentioned travelling over there ten times last year.

Is that is that gonna be how you manage it going forwards? Have you got any plans to move over there or or pi p like position yourself over there a bit more sort of semi permanently? Gulliver Moore (28:44.68) Not personally, no.

And I would say that ninety percent of our new business still comes from virtual relationships, emails, you know, conversations online. It's lovely when we get that that in person connection and it definitely counts for a lot. And all of our clients bar a very rare few we we know in person. but yeah, I I feel like yeah, th the the processes that we've got in terms of new business and client relationships in the UK, you know, very similar to in the US.

I I would say that the only challenging thing as well is sometimes the time difference can be a little bit tricky. but we we we make it work, you know. Adam Cooper (29:23.742) Yeah.

Okay. Okay, great. and then just like final point I'd love to get your view on is is around agencies and the future of them. Like th 'cause the reason I ask is there's lots of, you know, doom and gloom at the moment in the economy and in parts of the agency world, but you're clearly doing very well and you're performing strongly and you've been able to sort of counter that.

So what's your feeling about the future of the agency model? Are you optimistic about where it's going? Gulliver Moore (29:55.341) Yeah, I'm I'm always optimistic, potentially sometimes to my detriment.

But that's just how I like to work. And I do feel like you're right, I go to a lot of these agency events and it is a bit doom and gloom. I think in this this year in particular, I saw a forecast that had i there's there's this really good report called Bench Press. If you don't know the WoW company, they're they're brilliant.

And they forecast agencies' positive outlook by surveying thousands of agencies every year. And they did it at the start of the year, and it was, I believe, 69 out of 100 in terms of optimistic outlook. And they recently refreshed it and it was in the the mid-40s. So I think that the optimism of the agency world has really dipped within the last five months.

But I definitely remain optimistic. I think if you're a good bunch of talented people who work well together, then there's going to be no shortage of of good work for you out there. So I think that maybe we are being a little bit more conservative with our growth and expansion in the UK at least, because of you know some challenging agency and economic conditions. But, you know, when is it when has it not been hard times?

I mean, literally, I you know, I graduated uni in twenty thirteen, the you know, financial crash was too far in the rear view mirror and it's it's just been doom and gloom ever since then. There's literally never been a good time. So you know, I mean I can't imagine what it'd be like to run a business in good times, you know, in in the early two thousands or in the eighties. That would have been awesome.

Adam Cooper (31:27.208) I I can well I'm a bit older than you. I can remember the early two thousands and there people were complaining then and were pessimistic then. So I don't I think as you say, rightly say if you're talented, you you can control your controllables and control your part of the market, you'll you'll create good work and people want to work with you.

So I hundred percent agree. so li lovely to finish on a on a positive. So and moving into our final section, which is our business book bonus section, and this is where we ask our guests to to recommend a book or a podcast or piece of content that's been meaningful on your career and that you'd recommend to the audience. So so Gulliver, what would you like to recommend to the audience today?

Gulliver Moore (32:07.838) I would like to recommend a balance of of fiction and nonfiction. I think sometimes you can get a little bit caught up in the self-improvement gains and everything just slightly ticking up by a percentile every single day. and sometimes it's healthy to just take a step back and read a nice fiction novel.

but I think that if you're if you're reading or listening to, which I highly advocate for, self-help books and company help books, the the all-time classic at Sunday Treat is radical candor. By Kim Scott, which is fantastic in terms of teaching you how to have those brave, hard conversations with your team. I would say that's probably the management book that I've taken the most out of. I also really like Making of a Manager by Julie Zow.

That's a really strong one that I return to time and time again and tend to buy a copy for any team member that's stepping up into a management role. Adam Cooper (33:04.948) Nice. Okay.

And totally agree with your view of of mixing up and also listening to books as well. I think it's a great way of being able to digest them. But those are two two good ones, yeah. Radical candor and making of a manager.

So we'll put those in the show notes for anyone who's listening. And before we finish, is there anything that we haven't covered? or if not, where can people find out more about you and and what Sunday Treat you're doing? Gulliver Moore (33:29.

156) there's one more book that pops into my head, which I don't know the name of, I'd need to look it up, but it was something that I just finished reading, which was written by someone who does all the coaching for the Google exec team around how to manage their to-do lists. And I'm a total productivity nerd. I think that I probably sometimes take it to toxic productivity levels where I'm just optimizing my system so much rather than actually just bloody getting the work done.

But this book was really good in terms of working out what your priorities are the day before and being really strong. Strict on having only three high priority items, how you balance your recurring small tasks with your one-off big tasks, and making sure that you protect your time in the right kind of way. So that was really fab. It's called uptime, that's it.

And yeah, really, really enjoyed that. I'd I'd highly recommend that. Ollie recommended that to me actually. He's also a fanatic productivity nerd, and we really we really bond over it together.

Adam Cooper (34:14.037) Nice. Adam Cooper (34:24.562) Excellent.

I can see why the partnership has worked so well for so many years. Gulliver Moore (34:27.146) Exactly, yeah. And actually the reason that our partnership has worked so well, we've known each other for fifteen years now, is because we're very candid with each other and we have really difficult conversations.

And I think that I'm a firm believer that life is better the more difficult conversations you have. But in terms of Adam Cooper (34:42.644) Radical ca radical candor, as you say. Gulliver Moore (34:44.

78) That's radical candor. but yeah, in terms of what we're up to, you can keep abreast of Sunday treat on all of our socials. We are currently posting a TikTok every single day. We've done that in 2026 every day.

And that's a really fun way for you to get a bit of a lens into the team and the culture. We shoot a lot of them in our Paddington office and we yeah, we're quite active on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on our website, and yeah, just drop us a line and come by for coffee if you want to chat. Adam Cooper (35:18.086) Amazing.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Gulliver, for joining me today on the Fractional CFO show. Really appreciate your insight, your perspective and your time. Thank you.

Gulliver Moore (35:26.105) Thanks, Adam. That was fun.