Jack Smith is the co-founder and managing director of Prospa Media, a Manchester-based ecom growth agency.
At just 24-years-old, Smith built Prospa from his university bedroom three years ago in 2021 and the agency now has an office in Salford Quays with 14 members of staff.
Prospa specialises in marketing luxury fashion and has worked on campaigns with Glenmuir, Maison de Fashion, HECK, Sockshop and many more. Now attracting “some of the best talent that Manchester has to offer”, Prospa is enjoying a period of rapid growth under Smith’s direction including a nomination for Best Midsize Agency – sponsored by Sedulo – at Prolific North’s Marketing Awards.
Here, he shares a little about his journey, tips and career advice…
How did you first get into your industry?
I started my career in marketing through a Business and Sports Management degree in Leeds, with the intention of becoming a football agent. I took a Digital Marketing
module and I really enjoyed it.
I went for a leading marketing placement in London and after a strenuous interview process with around 30-40 other people I was offered the job, at the time I was delighted and I was meant to start in June 2021.
It was at the start of February 2021 that I started speaking with Sam Styan (Prospa co-founder) who was selling timber at the time. We started exploring the idea of working together – combining my albeit limited marketing experience with Sam’s sales experience.
So we set up Prospa in my university bedroom in May 2021 and we started asking fashion brands if we could do their advertising, Sam was doing outreach and I was doing the
marketing.
Our first client signed up at £30/month… so I dropped out of my placement three weeks before my start date and committed to Prospa (risky I know). Everybody told me not to at the time, but now we’ve scaled Prospa to 14 members of staff with an office in Salford Quays in three years.
What do you love about your job?
What I love most about my job is that we’re building something, everything we do is new to us and we’re laying the tracks in front of us as we go. This is something that we try to instill in the team, making them aware of the impact they are having in our growth and the growth of the brands that we work with. Being responsible for scaling brands and taking them to a global market is also a great privilege.
I also love being part of people’s personal development. We’ve built out an extensive training program at Prospa that is designed to upskill new team members quickly and thoroughly, we want people to be proud of working at Prospa and we look to improve every member of staff professionally.
As cliché as it sounds, every day is different and I wouldn’t change that for anything.
Who – or what – has inspired you in your career?
Tennis champion Rafael Nadal’s work ethic really motivates me, he’s a class act and I’ve followed him for years. His ability to block out the noise and work on his personal development inspires me a lot, despite his profession being drastically different to mine!
I consume a lot of Alex Hormozi content too, his outlook and his ability to simplify large issues into small ones is incredible – we often use his clips to convey ideas to the team.
And lastly, it would have to be Olly Hudson, co-founder of Soar with Us and For You Advertising – he’s been a great mentor to me and is there to bounce ideas off. What he’s done with For You and Soar has been a great inspiration for us. He’s taught me a lot.
What are the biggest challenges about your job?
A lot rests on my shoulders as founder and managing director, there is a lot to juggle internally and externally. Internally, ensuring that everyone is happy and has everything that they need is paramount.
We also operate 40+ clients with over 100 active ad accounts so naturally keeping them all happy is a challenge in and of itself.
Thankfully, we’ve built the best possible fulfillment team so keeping our clients happy is an easy challenge to overcome.
What skills have been the most crucial to you succeeding in your career so far?
If you asked me if I was a good leader three years ago I would have said no, but as we’ve built out our team I’ve come to really enjoy it and I’ve found I’ve excelled in leading a team – this has definitely helped me get Prospa to where it is today.
I would also say my willingness to be uncomfortable, I love to struggle and it’s where I get my best work done. As a founder, you have to be prepared to suffer if you want results – I’ve always remained dogged in my pursuit of growing this business.
It’s always been important to keep a level head too, which has allowed me to isolate issues and attack them in a calm manner.
What was your first salary and what could someone getting into the industry expect to earn nowadays?
My first job in marketing was completely unpaid. I was at university and after we had a fascinating guest lecturer I stayed behind and asked if he had any opportunities to get
involved. I was responsible for working on sponsorship deals for the Leeds Chiefs Ice Hockey team – I was offered a full-time paid role after a couple months but I was focused on university at the time.
The best thing about the marketing space is the diversity of roles and areas that you can work in. Salaries vary drastically so it’s difficult to say what someone could expect, agencies often have great company benefits so that plays a part too.
There are new roles being created all the time too. For example, an influencer executive role didn’t exist 10 years ago, so who knows what else will come about. Covid created a whole new industry of user generated content (UGC), and now if you do UGC as a full-time job, you can earn thousands.
On a whole, our industry pays well.
What education or training would be most useful for someone looking to follow your career path?
I believe that a 360 agency offers the best possible training to introduce you to the world of marketing. You’re working with a lot of different brands in a lot of different industries. Although you might be doing one role, you’re also working alongside a lot of other people in different roles. From there, you can identify which area you enjoy the most and double down.
Reading has been integral to my personal growth and I would advise everybody looking to a career in marketing to pick up some books from the likes of Simon Sinek, Neil Patel, Seth Godin, Phillip Pullman etc.
When I don’t read, I definitely feel a drop in energy and motivation, even if it’s just something not even related to my role, it keeps me stimulated.
What advice would you give for somebody looking to follow your path?
Just start.
You can follow all these business pages and podcasts and they’re great but they can’t do it for you. Start cold calling brands and try to land your first client. Never turn down unpaid or cheap work in the beginning. One of our first clients was completely unpaid, we transformed their ads and began scaling them – that was our first case study, we sent it to brands in the same niche and we had a queue of businesses asking us when they could start.
We’re so ready for the next chapter. We have an exciting few months ahead of us with some drastic plans and we can’t wait to get into it.
