Good People

Originally sent out: 27/02/25

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T.E.A Break – 025

Good people are hard to find. When you find them, treasure them.

Every week, in this T.E.A Break newsletter I reflect on what is going on in my Evergreen world.

This week, I’m thinking about how lucky I am to have good people around me.

The last 7 days have been a rollercoaster, as it so often is.

I’ve seen the best and worst in (different) people.

On the one hand, I’ve seen the worst in a couple of people who have decided to do me over to the tune of £10,000s.

On the other hand, I’ve seen the best in people in the form of my management team.

So much so, that I want to dedicate this 25th edition of T.E.A Break to them.

Over the past few months, I’ve managed to assemble a management team of really good people.

When it comes to building an effective management team, I’ve had more false starts than I care to remember.

Anyone who runs a business or has built a team will understand just how difficult it is to achieve.

That said, when you do find good people, it is the greatest feeling in the world.

I firmly believe lady-luck was looking fondly on me in February last year, as Darren, my Head of Creative, started at Evergreen on my 40th birthday.

I love this guy. I’ve said it on stage in front of 2,000 people at BrightonSEO and I’ll say it again on this T.E.A Break newsletter to you.

Darren is the creative to my geek. We’re like two peas in a pod.

We work so incredibly well together (as you have seen from our content) and I wish we’d found each other 10 years ago, as my days… the things we could have achieved together.

It gets even better.

Last summer, I received not one but two speculative messages from people on LinkedIn who I didn’t know.

Both reached out and said they loved what we were doing and were fans of our content.

Both said if a senior role that required their expertise came up that they’d love to have a chat.

I kid you not, I received those two out-of-the-blue messages within a fortnight of one another.

It seems good people are like buses. You wait years for one and then two come along at once.

The first time I spoke to Lucinda, who is now my Head of Paid Search, it was like talking to a long-lost friend. We just clicked.

We spoke for I don’t know how long and I came off the call and said to my wife, “She’s amazing, I have to have her on my team.”

Not only does Lu have a wealth of experience, expertise and a love for paid search that surpasses even my own, she has a wickedly dry sense of humour.

A cracking example of this was when she came up to meet the rest of the team.

At the end of the interview, we asked if she had any questions. She looked down at the floor, then straight back up and with a deadpan look on her face said:

“Are Sambas mandatory?”

She was referring to our footwear, as it just so happened that Harriet, Darren and I were all wearing Adidas Samba trainers.

We all fell about laughing. Skip forward to Lu starting, on day one… what do you think was waiting for her on her desk? (true story).

I had my first call with Matt, who is now our Head of Paid Social, stood on my driveway at home.

I’d just got home after a long day, my wife was cooking dinner and I said, “I’ll just be 10 mins, I’m having a quick call with Matt”.

Matt’s experience and expertise is in paid social (so Meta Ads for example) and we’d never had a dedicated paid social role in the agency before.

I’d be wanting to introduce paid social into Evergreen for some time, but never found the right person to lead it.

It took the right person to find me.

With my wife leaning out of the door shouting, “Oi hurry up, your dinner is going cold…” I couldn’t pull myself away from the call.

We were like two excited little boys…

Chatting through ideas of what was possible with paid social.

Discussing how a paid social team could and should look.

Matt explained how things were evolving and what we’d need to do.

An hour later we were still on the phone.

Finally, with my wife all but having given up on me ever coming in and my dinner stone cold on the side in the kitchen, I said, “I’ve gotta go, but I’ll follow up tomorrow.”

Matt’s reply, “No need, I love it, count me in.”

I went back in the house, put my dinner in the microwave, turned to my wife and said, “We’ve just found our Head of Paid Social!”.

Both Matt and Lu have been with Evergreen for a few months now, they are loving it and I’m loving having them in my team.

I took the pair of them out for a coffee and a catch up yesterday and didn’t tell them I was going to make them the highlight of this 25th edition of T.E.A Break.

I’m sure they’ll be embarrassed as they read this, but as I said to them yesterday, they are good people and I think the world of them.

I should also make it clear that every single member of my team are good people and I treasure them all.

There is one more person who has to get an extra special mention…

My wife, Harriet, who also happens to be the Creative Director at Evergreen.

Without Harriet, there would be no Evergreen. I may be the face of Evergreen, but she is the beating heart.

My point here for you, dear reader, is this… Whether you’re mad enough like me to choose to work with your partner. Just remember:

Good people are worth the struggle to find them.

We all have to kiss a few frogs to find our prince or princess.

When you find them, treasure them and they’ll look after you.

___

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