My name is John Foster and I founded SHERE in 1989.  The concept of ShereCatalyst was launched in 2009.

I came from a client-side background where I used outside assistance from marketing, PR and creative agencies.  I was never very happy with these agencies and thought I could do a better job.  Of course the reality of starting and growing my own agency proved rather more difficult than I imagined!  ... And this was in the days of very little competition.

Anyway, I got started, calling up ex work colleagues and touting for business.  I was fortunate to win a couple of small projects and these led to more.  But in the early days this was not enough to cover my financial needs.  So I also took part time evening and weekend jobs to make up my income.  I kept my overheads to their bare minimum.  After two years of really hard graft getting the client work done and on the phone every spare minute, selling myself to prospects and doing pitches, the profit had reached a level where I could afford to take a small office above a design studio.  This gave my business the impression of more substance than my one-man-band, home-based set up.  Finally, I could invite clients to come to my office!

Another year of slogging away and I was able to employ a part-time account handler.  Next I hired a part-time administrator.  After 5 years we were 5 people and I was making a comfortable income – but I had not had more than 5 days off in a row and I was working 60 hours a week.  As the years passed things remained much the same.  Looking back, it feels like wasted time because we were going flat out but not really making progress.  Each time I would win a client I’d think the agency could see more growth, but it was like the proverbial spinning plates – as soon as we added a new client, one of the others would go wobbly.  The clients wanted my input – but I could only work so many hours.

Back in those days I began thinking about how to solve this problem.  It occurred to me that taking on associates who could provide the higher level input that the clients wanted, might be the answer.  And it was a good move.  SHERE did grow as a result – but the associates of course did not exclusively work for the agency so their work with SHERE was not their only priority.  Nor were they as committed to us as they would be with their direct clients.  Along the way we began to tighten up on procedures and systems, but the underlying problem of client servicing still meant we would take 3 steps forward, then 2 back.

Eventually I hit upon the idea of partnering.

Partnering proved to be the answer.  It led SHERE to grow to having several divisions, each run by Managing Partners, and a combined turnover of £3m+.

One of the early partners, Martyn Billing already had a successful marketing consultancy business but saw our partnering model as an opportunity to create a business that would have value over the long term.

Through ShereCatalyst, Martyn and I now provide this proven successful partnering system to anyone who has the desire and the skills to start or grow their own marketing, consulting or PR business.