prabhuPassionate young marketer Jamie Love founded his own agency, Monumental, in 2017.
The agency’s USP is to help small businesses compete on a global scale – it works with clients from around the world on briefs that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive with larger partners. Monumental was named the UK’s Best Growth Marketing Agency 2020 at the Business Excellence Awards.
Jamie is an active and public figure within the LGBT+ community, serving as the Marketing, PR & Entertainment Director at Edinburgh Pride and regularly advocating for the community.
We sat down with Jamie to learn more.
Which single daily habit or practice could you not do without?
In the evening I have to plan the following day; I’ve tried to phase it out at times as it’s not really the healthiest thing to be doing at 1am. However, every time I tried I would just get restless and anxious about not having cemented what I’d be doing the following day.
On a Sunday evening, it gets even more exciting – it’s a whole week’s planning.
What’s been your luckiest break?
I don’t believe I’ve had a single moment in time that I would tag as the luckiest break. However, a lot of what springs to mind is around meeting the right people at certain events.
I think as an entrepreneur you have so many competing priorities that events are usually the first thing you cut out of busy days. However, meeting the people I have met at events has allowed me to really grow my network and in turn my business.
What’s your best failure?
Prior to owning Monumental Marketing I had always been client-side, so running an agency was completely new to me. My first-ever client was horrendous to us and cost us a lot of money.
From them we learned so much about how to work with clients, what should be agreed and documented, the legalities around our working relationships, and much more. It did put us in a really tough spot being one of our first large deals but… would I do it all over again? Absolutely.
The learnings from that experience have been invaluable to our growth.
What is the best investment you’ve ever made, either financial or time?
The best investment has definitely been my team. They represent everything Monumental stands for as well as being paramount in the growth of my business and happiness of my clients… the reviews speak for themselves! More importantly though they are the ones actively supporting the build of my dream, day in and day out.
How would you describe your work/life balance?
Pretty non-existent until quite recently. I made a conscious decision when I started Monumental that my personal and social life would take a hit – it was a natural occurrence if I wanted to achieve everything I had set out for myself and my company.
It doesn’t really help that I absolutely adore my job and to this day I’ve never felt that it has been “work”. That being said, I recently understood the importance of switching off and developing other parts of my life too; I still wouldn’t say it’s the healthiest balance but I am happy and that’s the most important thing. People operate differently, so I don’t believe forcing a work/life balance is healthy anyway!
What one piece of advice would you give your 21-year-old self?
To have faith in yourself. When Monumental first started I was so scared of being me and letting Monumental be what I’d always dreamed of it being. The way I did this was to try and create a big corporate brand feel, which I wasn’t even comfortable with! The minute we started being unapologetically us is when Monumental became… well… Monumental.
Who or what has had the single biggest influence on your working life?
I started my first business at 18 and then dissolved it to pursue a career in eCommerce.
My first boss personified everything I wanted to be “when I grew up”. I was speaking with her about her career and it was simply astonishing – so I asked her, ‘if you could give me one piece of advice based on your experience what would it be?’ She stopped to think for a few seconds and then said: “My way of making decisions in business and in life in general has been based on thinking of the worst case scenario… if you can live with it, do it.” That’s the mentality I’ve applied to every step of Monumental.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people.
I failed most of my A-Levels and dropped out of uni about 20 minutes into my course.
What does success look like to you?
Success for me isn’t about money but rather being perceived as a thought leader in my industry. With Monumental, success is down to client satisfaction. I can’t think of many agencies whose clients go out their way to express how happy they are with their services, and that to me is success.
