By Agency Works 
Next up in our shiny, new Meet the Team series, its Agency Works co-founder and Sales Director, Steve ‘Vin’ Vincent.
Tell us about your early career? What was your first job?
“I was born in Worcester, but we moved around quite a lot due to my dad’s job in the courts service.
“For my first job I followed in his footsteps and worked at Manchester County Court, before going off to Leeds Metropolitan University to study Sports Science.
“Sport was very much my thing growing up. Football and cricket were the two I loved most, and I suppose I did have aspirations to be a professional sportsman. I played cricket at a decent level but was never quite good enough to make it professionally.
“After leaving university in 1996, I got a job as a personal trainer at a gym. While working there I got to know one of the members who worked for an IT software recruitment company, and she told me she thought I had the skills to work in IT sales.
“The first job I went for was with a company called Tailored Business Systems, who were the precursors to Synergist. Initially, I was selling their accounting systems but, when they developed Synergist, I became their northern salesperson for it and Jay [Agency Works co-founder and MD] joined as their southern salesperson.
"This would have been around the late 90s/early 2000s. So that's where we met, and formed our friendship, and within a few years we’d left and set up what is now Agency Works.”
What's the best thing about your role?
“I think it’s meeting and working with so many different types of people. I love building relationships with people and helping them solve their problems.
“It’s great to see the impact we have on agencies - helping them take what they’re already doing really well but being able to, for example, better streamline operations or increase profitability.
We're here to help agencies thrive and achieve what they want to achieve. If we don't think Synergist is going to turn the dial or have much impact, then implementing it would do the opposite. It's got to be a right fit for both us and for the agency as well.
What do you like most about working with agencies?
“While I’ve never actually worked in an agency, I've worked with agencies for 25 years. That’s 25 years of demos and going to see clients, and sitting through all the challenges and seeing all the things they do, so I’m pretty well immersed in that world.
“I love the buzz of it. It’s fast-paced and dynamic and energetic. The agency world just has a buzz about it, and I think that’s what we all really love here. We’re a big part of the agency community and people have moved from not just being our prospects or clients but our friends.”
What value do clients get from working with you?
“I think what we’re able to do is take their energy and fun and creativity and help them harness that with what might be viewed as the more mundane side of things like process, operations and reporting.
“Ultimately, if they’re doing all that amazing work, they need to be making sure they’re getting paid appropriately for it. If we can help them with their processes they can monetise what they’re doing more than they are at the moment.
“I think the other thing that Agency Works offers is this real passion combined with experience and longevity in the business. We have a lot of experience across lots of the different parts of what makes an agency successful, whether it be operations or finance… We’re a trusted partner much more than just a supplier. We’ll continue to collaborate with people long after the onboarding process.”
What would you be doing if you weren't in this job?
“As a child it was definitely a professional sportsman, but I think now if I wasn’t doing this I’d probably still like to be in the same industry, whether it be consultancy or coaching or something like that.
“If not that, then possibly something completely different, maybe something that involved working abroad, or the sports psychology side of things as that's always interested me.”
Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions? Work or life-wise?
“I love travelling and one place I’ve never been but would love to go is South Africa. From a sporting point of view it would obviously be amazing, but also the food, the wine, the safaris…
“I'm fortunate enough to have to visited lots of different places around the world over the last 50 years, but yeah, definitely more travelling and more experiences, and balancing that with more time with family. My children are 17 and 18 now, so it’s getting harder to get us all together in one place at the same time.”
What do you like doing when you're not at work?
“I’m still a huge sports fan, but I fractured my skull in 2015. I was attacked on a night out and spent two weeks in hospital with a serious head injury, so that kind of put an end to my cricket playing! These days I’m much more about watching sports. I support Liverpool, but I watch a LOT of football, I’ve always got some sort of game on the TV, no matter who’s playing.
“The other thing I love is walks with our dog Archie. He’s a shih-poo, a cross between a shih tzu and a poodle, so he should be really cute and fluffy but he actually just looks really miserable a lot of the time. I don’t think he likes me much!
“Exercise-wise, I work from home and I’ve got a treadmill in the office so I try to get on it regularly during the week, be it lunch-time or after work. It’s just the best way to clear your mind.”
And finally, any interesting talents or claims to fame?
"It's not strictly my claim to fame but… I’ve been to Buckingham Palace twice as my dad was awarded a CBE by the Queen in 2001 and then a CMG by Prince Charles in 2006 for his services to national and international justice. He sadly passed away in 2011 but those were two of the proudest days of our lives."
