Taylor Fielding, CEO, TFM Digital
Towards the back end of 2025, TFM Digital celebrated its 5th anniversary. It’s been a long road, one that has aged me, in a good way, exposure to a lot of new experiences and left me feeling a more capable leader, as a result.
I wanted to share a few lessons I’ve picked up along the way, as they may be helpful to other leaders or indie agencies.
Trust your people and the process
If this could be points 1-5, it would be.
There is no way to scale as a business without trust in your people. Each person, especially when you’re starting out, shapes the way the agency works and is perceived.
When you’re an independent agency, working in a people-based industry, you’re only as strong and capable as your team. Tools and tech are there, but people are the ones calling the shots and managing big decisions.
But when you empower your teams to make those calls at the appropriate level, your organisational structure flattens, and things can move and scale exponentially.
By creating psychological safety, you can let their craft shine. And by this I mean, allow people to have agency and make mistakes.
Creating an environment where people feel empowered to take risks yields rewards at both the micro and macro levels. When your team is holding each other to account, rather than any hierarchical pressure from the top, it feels like you’re in this thing together.
Your size is also your secret weapon in pitches, as only team members who will be working on the account will be present during a pitch – no networked luxuries here. But it does bring an appreciated transparency to the process.
Hire for the mission
One of the first things I picked up at business networking events was to appear larger than you are. In the early days, I represented most areas of the business, but kept the title of General Manager to imply there was a much larger team working behind me.
Since then, I have been fortunate enough to be able to hire a number of other senior leads throughout the business. We have grown with the momentum of the business.
A couple of years ago, I made the move to CEO, following another GM hire, which signalled the clarity of roles both internally and to the market.
Hiring for appetite and ambition can really supercharge your progress. For me, it was always about unlocking the next S-curve for the business. And building up a competent team, peppered with senior figures, was paramount for our next step.
Our Leadership Pathways development program provides a clear reward guide for those within the business who demonstrate excellence and the potential for partnership at the highest levels within TFM Digital.
Purpose is a performance system
Ensuring that everyone is on the same page is vital in any organisation. No matter its size.
Our purpose of ‘Impacting People’ always felt close to how we wanted to do business. It’s not just some nice copy to hang on our walls, it’s how we set expectations, run events and brief work. It’s our reliable fallback and our guiding principle for when we’re unsure of our next move.
Everyone knows it and uses it daily. It’s helped us build pride and retention that clients notice and comment on, no matter how long we’ve been working with them.
Teach in public
We’ve made a point that whether it’s events we’ve attended, or panels we’ve spoken on or any form of published POV, we’ve aimed to share that information/knowledge as widely and freely as possible.
For two reasons, to create career stretch for the team, as well as attracting like-minded talent. Most of our new recruits over the past couple of years, have mentioned during the interview process, their thoughts on our social media presence or our news in the trade media. It’s helped persuade a few to choose our agency over competing offers.
I’ve always believed that feedback is a gift and should be treated as such, not something to be feared, or used as a stick. We ensure that we have transparent debriefs as a collective to keep things honest and improving. So quarterly catch-ups remain fresh, relevant as well as moving the agency in the direction we all share as a team.
I mentioned earlier about the team having agency and accountability and this is where we have to be honest with ourselves and each other. Fixing any gaps quickly has become one of our agency’s specialties, because things can and will go differently to how you anticipated and it’s the agility and accountability to resolve these things in a timely manner that can make all the difference.
Celebrate loudly
We have shared every stage of success within our business, from recognition around our launch, through to white paper releases along with my proudest moment with TFM, featuring in the past two editions of AFR’s FAST 100 list, the only agency to achieve this consecutive feat!
We celebrate every account win with pride, and it helps build the belief internally and externally. Developing thought leadership within the team as well as in trade media has been vital in helping translate the expertise we demonstrate in daily conversations and share it with a wider audience.