She Just Needed to Be at the School Gates at 4pm: Cecilia Grigor on Building a 10-Person Remote Marketing Agency, Navigating AI, and Why She's Not Sinking

In this episode of Scale HER Up, I'm joined by Cecilia Grigor, director of Planitt Scotland Limited — a marketing partner (she doesn't like the word agency) based in Inverness, now in its 13th year, with 10 staff working fully remotely from across the UK.

Cecilia started the business by herself, in a single room at home, because she needed to be at the school gates at 4 o'clock. What started as a single mum doing "whatever needed done" for clients who didn't know what to do with their marketing has grown into a team spanning Inverness, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.

She's also just turned 40. And she's starting to think about what the next 13 years look like.

We cover:

• What Planit Scotland actually does and why Cecilia refuses to call it an agency
• Marketing then vs now: jack of all trades, specialism, and now the AI era
• Setting guardrails for AI in a marketing business — and why she tells clients everything
• Building a remote team culture: Monday goal-setting calls, buddy calls, Friday wins, and the team member who's been to five Taylor Swift concerts
• Why COVID reduced her staff from five to one — and how she rebuilt, fully remote
• The Business Gateway graduate who changed everything
• Taking staff turnover personally — and why she stopped
• Coaching and accountability: the Entrepreneurial Spark programme, one-to-one coaching, and why accountability is the only bit that actually works
• Turning 40, stepping back, and why good leaders build teams that go further than they did
• "Are you gonna sink or are you gonna swim? I'm not sinking. I've worked too hard."

Quote of the episode: "Life's complicated enough. Let's just not make it harder." — Cecilia Grigor