After a tumultuous period of growth in her business Ultimate Sync Access, CEO and founder Amelia McCloskey sought help from Be the Business to prepare for raising investment.
Founded in 2023, Ultimate Sync Access offers different tiers of membership to music industry creatives, with connections, briefs and resources to secure sync opportunities for their catalogues.
“We’ve had growth issues, and cash flow issues due to that growth,” Amelia said.
“In our first year we did really well, then we went through a rebrand to take it to the next level. We wanted to target a different audience, so we were making it accessible to everyone, but we decided to pivot and only be business to business.
“Some clients didn’t see the value of the new services, so we had to make additional changes, as well as changing the audience we were targeting. There is also a lot of stigma around pay-to-play platforms like ours in the industry, so we’ve been working hard to break down those barriers as well. So a number of challenges happening at once.”
Learning to work better
Amelia recalled that she started The Productivity Programme because she was considering seeking investment.
“A lot of our customers aren’t in the UK, so we’re already a global business and I could see the growth potential, which we’d need a cash injection for. So this programme came at the right time, just as we’re launching everything new,” she said.
“The main thing in terms of productivity is streamlining processes. There are things we’re doing that can be done in a better way. We’re a small company, the staff are overloaded and at risk of burnout. So we need to find ways to work together and get things done efficiently, so we can save costs and eventually increase staff.”
Going into the programme, Amelia was keen to learn from the experts. “I’m really open to receiving advice from company leaders on how I can improve my leadership skills because the way I do things affects the whole team,” she said.
Building foundations for productivity
After completing her first board meeting, Amelia reflected on the expertise of the board members. “It was a very different industry for some of them, but the same business principles apply, and they are super knowledgeable. I’m not very clued up on business terms but they were happy to elaborate and ask for my observations on certain things,” she explained.
Discussions with the board supported Amelia to “establish there’s some foundational stuff to work on” before she could get into talking about marketing.
“Even though it was hard to hear certain things, it’s what we needed. You can’t have any ego or pride as a business owner, it will be your downfall – you need to come in and be ready to listen to anything they advise you to do,” she said.
Looking ahead to the next meeting, Amelia said that finances will be the main topic on the agenda.
“Operational costs are the biggest issue right now, so next meeting I’m going to show them the financials. The goal is to get the business in a position where all staff can be full-time, to help them feel less stressed and help the business flourish,” she said.
Recovering from a crisis
During Amelia’s time working with the board, Ultimate Sync Access suffered a severe security breach. Amelia’s resilience and determination were crucial to the business’s survival.
“I’m not going to have anyone force me to quit. I built this from the ground up and it’s not going to just be taken,” she said.
“I’ve been in crisis mode, and making sure that clients are still able to be served has been my number one priority.”
Taking the opportunity to rebuild
Amelia explained that the situation has helped her to see how to run a stronger business going forward.
“I’m trying to focus on seeing what wasn’t working before, to rebuild something better. Of course, I’ve learned about cyber security, about how to allocate access to the business’ IP and how important it is to back everything up. That’s been a hugely valuable lesson for me.
“I’ve also learned to invest properly in the hiring process – to not rush things and listen to my instincts; in hindsight, the business wasn’t going to work because I didn’t have the right team.”
Re-evaluating the business also helped Amelia to identify how to improve the business model.
“I need to have a better platform for my members. What we’ve always done well was the level of guests we were bringing in – they were people at the top of their game in every sector of the media. But I’ve been told that the functionality of the platform could be better, so I know that moving forward, I’m going to use something which is a lot more community-focused,” she explained.
“No matter what the situation, there are always lessons and positives you can take from it.”
Learning from experience
Moving into the next phase of Ultimate Sync Access, Amelia said that one lesson from the board will be particularly useful.
“I’ve learned from them that all decisions have to be financial. I used to push [financial management] aside to focus on the day-to-day, but I’ve learned that a lot of businesses fail in the scale-up stage because they didn’t scrutinise and stay on top of financials.”
“The board supported me to create three- and five-year plans before I had to change focus and go back to basics. That was really helpful because I could see the overall vision of where the business was going, and not get stuck in the day-to-day.”
Amelia just had her second board meeting through The Productivity Programme. We’ll be following her six-month journey with the programme, so stay tuned for updates.
Could your business benefit from six months of personalised business support from a board of experts? Find out more about The Productivity Programme here.
