Part Six: Dashboard, then and now.

As Dashboard turns 10 in January of 2011, Barry Hillier, our CVO, looks back at the company on where we were and where we are going.

Good Management in Bad Times…

When a door closes, a window opens. As Chris departed, it was time to re-evaluate the company and our goals. Dashboard was always growing and we could re-evaluate the future with a fresh re-start in 2008. Since the beginning, I had always written a business plan for the business. This is something that I’d recommend for any entrepreneur because it helps guide you with an established strategy and it serves to remind you of the core goals you’ve set and the results you expect to achieve. I used this time to shift our organization structure and invest in senior talent. It would cost, but I believed that this was a necessary step to grow the future.

Part of our growth goals was to expand our client base beyond Unilever and Toyota. We love these clients, but we maintained 80% of our business between these two clients and 5 brands. It was a level of exposure that didn’t make business sense as we could be in trouble if we lost one or more. To help us with this, we brought on Brian Steinhauser to head up our New Business and aggressively begin looking for good fits with Dashboard. This was the first time since 2003 that we actively sought new business beyond referral.

I also pondered my own position as President and decided to re-evaluate my role. It goes back to my earlier blog where I mentioned learning about learning the difference between being an employee and a shareholder. As a shareholder, I wanted the company to grow beyond myself as an employee. Now, many entrepreneurs have trouble stepping aside and letting other people step in to guide the company that they created and lost sleep over. It’s natural and understandable, but in many cases, it’s limiting. Had I not started an agency when I was younger, I would have gained experience in larger agencies that would have helped me in key areas of leadership, establishing process and much, much more. Instead, I gained invaluable experience in understanding financials, launching a start-up, establishing bank relationships and much, much more. Each direction had tremendous value and anyone, depending on the time and opportunity, will likely face this choice with a fork in the road of their career.

Needless to say, the routes of agency executive vs. agency entrepreneur are two different paths and skill-sets. Recognizing this, I decided to step aside as President and bring in someone who had taken that larger agency path to help lead Dashboard into the next growth phase. I invested in bringing on Daryl Aitken, a former EVP, Managing Director at BBDO and then Head of Marketing at ebay. Our skill sets complemented one another very well and Dashboard was stacked for growth.

Bringing on someone of Daryl’s stature would cost Dashboard in the form of some ownership, but it was well worth it since we would have the best of both worlds between herself and myself… entrepreneurial soul with institutional savvy and experience. In addition, we added Gayle Lunn as our head of Client Service. She had agency and client experience and we wanted someone that wanted to grow with the company and put a serious mark on our brand. This team, with the addition of Brian Steinhauser and having promoted Tim Arney to head up our Technology gave us a strong experienced leadership base to grow our clients and expand our client base beyond Unilever and Toyota.

All of the changes in 2008 proved to be wise as the world experienced the worst market crash in September, 2008 since the Great Depression. All of our clients and almost every business in the world pulled back dramatically. Fortunately, we had begun our new business efforts as we would need to rely on them heavily in the following two years. There is a saying that you never recognize bad management in good times, but good management in bad times rises to the surface quickly. Tough times were certainly ahead of us.