EP43: Business planning for agencies | Deepa Shah | Lab Eight

One of the biggest challenges we face for the remainder of 2020 and beyond is undoubtedly our ability (or inability) to plan ahead.

Almost daily, we are bombarded in the news by a roll call of redundancies, rumours of regional lockdown, interspersed with “is it a V, U, W or ‘swoosh’?” predictions for our economic recovery.

The end of furlough, Brexit (oh yes), and the prospect of a Covid resurgence over the winter all paint a picture where the only real certainty is uncertainty. And yet, if we are to survive and thrive, plan we must.

So where to start?

This is the question I put to my guest, founder of Lab Eight, Deepa Shah.

Deepa is a vastly experienced, multi-award winning agency CFO and a fresh new voice on the agency growth advisory circuit having launched Lab Eight in April this year, exactly as the pandemic struck.

Deepa shares her advice for where we should be focusing now, and how to plan ahead.

It’s worth noting good proportion of the guests on this podcast are people I have known and worked with for many years throughout my career. They are the experts I have turned to for advice again and again, who can be relied upon for their deep knowledge of a specialist subject. 

Then there are those who have been recommended to me and others (mostly authors) who I have simply stalked until I could persuade them to join me.

Deepa is someone who first appeared on my LinkedIn radar at the beginning of the year and quickly became a regular fixture in my feed, adding a constructive and positive commentary to the most interesting of threads. Aside from her insights on her specialist subject – Deepa’s use of her network and LinkedIn as a platform has been a masterclass in how to launch a consultancy. But perhaps that’s an episode for another day.

In the meantime listen in and find out how to win a copy of Deepa’s recommended read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.