Building a 20-person Lifestyle Agency, with Gareth Hoyle.

In this episode of Lifestyle is a Plan, I’m joined by Gareth Hoyle, founder of Marketing Signals, a performance-driven digital marketing agency that challenges many of the assumptions people make about lifestyle agencies.

There’s often a perception that lifestyle agencies are tiny businesses, built around one or two people who have deliberately chosen not to grow.

Marketing Signals tells a different story.

Today, the agency operates with a:

20-person fully remote team
Four-day, 32-hour working week
£2 million turnover

All while maintaining a strong focus on lifestyle, flexibility and founder freedom.

Gareth has spent the last two decades building businesses that work around his life, not the other way round. These days, you’ll find him experimenting with AI, investing in UK scale-ups and attempting to teach machines to do his job.

What makes this conversation particularly interesting is that Gareth is one of the first agency founders I’ve seen openly talk on stage at major industry events about intentionally choosing the lifestyle agency route.

This episode digs into how he’s built Marketing Signals, the systems and people that support it, and why growth and lifestyle don’t have to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.

What you’ll discover in this episode:

Whether the lifestyle agency route was Plan A or Plan B for Gareth
Gareth’s own Founder Success Criteria
The key decisions that make Marketing Signals a lifestyle agency
The people and processes that support sustainable growth
Why the agency adopted a four-day working week
Advice for founders considering the lifestyle agency model
Whether Gareth believes the business could be sold in the future if he chose to do so
If you’ve ever wondered whether lifestyle agencies can scale, this episode offers a refreshing perspective.

If you’re looking to strengthen client relationships, improve retention, or create more growth opportunities within existing accounts, this episode is packed with practical advice you can apply immediately.