New approach to leadership key to growth of digital marketing agency

Realising he needed help, Peter began looking for external input and discovered the Help to Grow Management Course at Queen’s Business School at Queen’s University in Belfast. He signed up in February 2025. 
“There was a storm of issues and problems in the business, where the only common denominator was me, unfortunately. I knew I needed to look at how I was doing things.” 

With help from the leadership modules on the course, and the mentor assigned to him during his studies, Peter was quickly able to address where he was going wrong. 

“Because I was in start-up mode and always trying to keep one eye on doing things cheaply, I would hire based on enthusiasm and potential. That meant I was getting more junior members when I probably needed to recruit higher-skilled, more experienced people.  

Since the course, Peter is paying higher wages and has implemented a new three-step recruitment process to ensure he really is getting the right people for the job. A year on, he now has six team members and hasn’t had any staff leave since the middle of last year. 

Peter says one of the most valuable parts of the course was the 1-2-1 support from a business mentor. 

“Business is running a lot more smoothly and my mentor, Andrew Lowden, was a crucial part of that. He was an excellent, solid sounding board who had nothing to gain and was just there to help. It was great.” 

The content of the course itself helped Peter to rethink his idea of how a leader should act. 

“I had this realisation that leadership isn’t a box-ticking exercise. I’d always thought there were certain activities that you have to do to be a good leader, and if you do those, you’ll be fine.  

“What I’ve actually learned, and this phrase has stuck with me from the course, is that ‘leadership is a social enterprise’. That need for understanding your team, who they are and what makes them tick, was an eye opener for me.”  

As a result, Peter has felt confident to give the team more ownership over their own work and take a step back from the micro-managing he admits he was guilty of. 

He has also placed more of an emphasis on team building, with changes including the introduction of an incentive budget, where staff accumulate money they can use on team activities. They also take an hour out every week to spend time doing a non-work-related activity together. 

Customer churn has also slowed dramatically, thanks to improvements in processes, made as a result of Peter’s learnings from the course.  

“One thing I loved was the Virtual Twin Business Model, where you map out a version of your business on paper and look at it from a bird's eye view.  

“That was one of the first things that we did as a team when I got back to the office, and it identified a lot of bottlenecks. I’ve been able to cut the amount of approvals that come through me right down.” 

The resulting improvements in customer experience are paying off, with the business enjoying a much more stable second half of 2025.  

“Before we made the changes, it would have been normal for us to have a new customer come in every week, and a customer leave every week. Looking back, that's absolute madness. Handing the reins over and not being the bottleneck has really helped. While it’s too early to put any sort of monetary value on the outcomes of the course, I can certainly say we’ve had less churn from customers, which is undoubtedly increasing our revenue.”  

For Peter, the course far exceeded his expectations. 

“Before I went on it, I just thought if I got a bit of time out of the business, to work on the business rather than in it, that would be good, but I got way more than that.  

“My mentor and the lecturers were excellent. I was a bit worried their experience of digital advertising might be a bit out-of-date, but I was wrong. They were very current and just very sharp, very smart. The content was bang on too. 

 “I have to mention Sean McColgan, the programme manager too. He really helped reassure me that, even though I hadn't been in a learning environment for 20 years, I would be welcome and valued.”  

Peter says the course has also helped him get clearer on the future for the business, which he is hoping to scale into a more structured, specialist growth partner for female-focused retail and wellness businesses.  

“The course has helped me build the foundations of a business that can grow sustainably. It’s encouraged me to formalise areas like strategic planning, role clarity, and long-term positioning, rather than relying purely on instinct and pace. 

“Ultimately, the goal is to build PDG into a recognised specialist agency in our niche, with the structure and leadership in place to support continued growth and deliver consistently strong results for our clients.”