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Then and now... Zac Evans

In the latest instalment of Bdaily’s Then and now series, Zac Evans, co-founder and director of Leeds-based 21 Degrees Digital, reflects on how an entrepreneurial spirit at university shaped a successful career in sales and marketing.

You are a director at 21 Degrees Digital. What does your role entail?

I'm one of the agency’s co-founders and so I still try to stay across all aspects of the business.

But my role right now is a hybrid between sales director and managing director — I either do one of them really well and the other not so much, or vice versa!

The two roles aren’t a natural fit but sales director is probably where most of my time goes. I like to get under the skin of an opportunity and understand how we can best support a potential client.

It’s an opportunity to rediscover that marketing and creative flair. That’s always been my passion and it’s what persuaded me to rip things up and start again when we launched 21 Degrees Digital.

Did you always want to work in this sector? Or did you have other ambitions when you were growing up?

I always knew I was going to work for myself. I just loved the element of making a deal and winning people around to your way of thinking.

Even in school I was trading bits and pieces here and there. I used to go to Costco, pick up some drinks and then sell them to the lads after football practice at school.

Football was always something I thought I might have a chance in but it didn't quite work out — at least not at the highest level.

I was part of the Team Northumbria squad at Northumbria University under Paul Johnson. During that time I studied for a degree in Sports Business Management and I started promoting club nights. That’s where I developed my passion for marketing.

What was your first job – and did you enjoy it?

I fell into the promo scene while I was still at university and I did a bit of everything from events to digital marketing.

I remember people knocking on doors trying to sell tickets to students and I thought ‘this is taking a long time — surely I can speed this up?’.

Facebook ads weren't really prevalent at the time but it felt like a really useful tool. The guy I was working for was big on putting together unique content and he gave me free rein to run the ads around that.

I was on commission and started to make good money. I loved it. It felt like I’d proved the concept and that mix of sales and creativity continues to drive everything I do.

Were there any mentors or individuals that helped shape your career? And are you still applying lessons you learned then to your workforce of today?

The first person who springs to mind is my former business coach Bill Squires. We’ve just parted ways but only because he did such a fantastic job and got us to where we need to be.

The lessons he taught me and the team about the real basics of running a successful business will always inform what I do. Bill was a mentor and he’s still an invaluable contact.

Other people who’ve helped to shape my career are my dad and my business partner and co-founder Rory Mason.

My dad doesn’t really understand the world I work in but he’s always instilled in me the right values and work ethic. I speak to him every day and his advice is invaluable.

Rory’s a little bit older than me, he’s worked for big names in the agency world, he lives and breathes marketing and shares my love for the creative side of our work.

What attracted you to the creative agency sector and what persuaded you to co-found 21 Degrees Digital?

I suppose I was always driven to the storytelling and creative side of marketing and after university I felt the best place to do that was in London.

I worked for an agency down there because I thought that’s where the best money and the biggest opportunities are.

But I didn’t enjoy my time working and living in London and I didn’t feel comfortable with the results-driven ethos. That’s when I told myself to give it a go back up north — Leeds is where I’m from and I’d already lived in Newcastle so I knew there were opportunities there.

I started out with a wedding videography-based business and in 2017 we formed 21 Degrees Digital. I met the right people at the right time in terms of being in a position to take the business forward.

How do you feel you’ve changed as a person over the years? Have career roles brought new dimensions to your personality?

I think the honest truth is that I think I've become a lot more cynical!

When we started the agency I think it was almost a case of looking at things through rose-tinted glasses.

We wanted to create something really cool with 21 Degrees Digital and we have. But we’ve also learnt that running a business can mean making compromises.

As an example, as an agency we’re passionate around neurodiversity and at one point we said we were going to be the most diverse and inclusive agency in the UK.

We’ve made giant strides in that regard but there’s no quick fix. There are so many other challenges that we face on a daily basis.

But I started the agency aged 23 and I’m 32 now. In that time I’ve done a lot of growing up and that’s a good thing. I’m much more numbers driven, I try to be nurturing where younger employees are concerned and I believe an element of cynicism can be a positive!

You’ve seen many changes to the employment world across your career – how do you see the workplace evolving in years to come?

When we started the agency we were very much a creative media agency rather than a digital agency — we were producing attractive content but we weren’t in a position to control the distribution of that content.

We realised that we were a little behind the curve and that’s when we merged with Rory to launch 21 Degrees Digital. Now we always aim to be ahead of the curve.

Recently we’ve seen the world of digital marketing shift again — now you have the likes of YouTube and TikTok essentially operating as search engines and we need to be on top of that.

But the biggest evolution in the workplace is around AI. There is a growing debate around job displacement and that whole issue is teetering on a knife edge.

China have already brought in legislation around protecting people’s jobs in the face of AI and it’s something everyone will need to look at.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Rushworth .