Harnessing the power of personal loss
“Work for me is about unlocking more life because I’m so tuned into the fact that I could die literally anytime
– then what’s the point.”
Interview: Sue Wilcock | Martine Silkstone
Pictures: Warren Page
Chris Reeve talks to Norfolk Director
Chris Reeve is well known in Norfolk for both his growing social media agency, Reeve Social Media, and his passion for Norwich City Football Club. You may have heard him on BBC Radio Norfolk in his role as co-host, or through his football podcast Talk Norwich City. Maybe you have seen him on LinkedIn chatting to other business owners about how to deliver great content, or seen him speaking at a local networking event. Or perhaps you have been engaged by his charity fundraising efforts in support of The Big C.
Yes, it is fair to say that Chris is one busy man.
Which might give the impression that he is out to conquer the world, but in reality not at all. He is simply determined to live life to the full – and there is a good reason for that. After the tragic death of his mother when he was a teenager, he resolved not to waste a single minute.
We are all shaped by the events of our childhood – often carrying the negative impact of trauma into later life – but Chris found a way to turn his grief into something positive; he channelled the lessons learned during that dark time into building not just an award-winning business, but a life of purpose and joy.
He says: “There has been a lot of self-psychology and therapy to get to this point, but now I take every chance and grab every opportunity. I don’t see risk like other people and that’s a real superpower for me.
“I don’t feel afraid to try, because nothing will ever be as bad as being brought back from school, walking into my mum’s bedroom and seeing her no longer with us.”
She gifted you a freedom in that moment?
“Yes, 100%, and I see that as a massive strength.”
And today, that legacy has seen Chris find his path to success.
What began as a side-hustle to his developing marketing career, has now become Reeve Social Media – an award-winning Norwich business that specialises in delivering bespoke social media strategies, management and coaching for companies across Norfolk and beyond. He also has a promising media career talking about a sport he loves, he spends time helping others through his charity work, and he is building a happy home with his wife, Becky.
So, looking back on that journey, how does it feel?
“It’s mad. Everything that happened when I was younger is now the main reason why I do what I do today.
“I thought I was picking social media just because I liked it, but actually it’s because it was there for me when I was lost and alone. It meant I felt heard and it gave me a connection with people when I needed it.
“I’m really fortunate to have had therapy with people like Cassandra Andrews, and that realisation was a bit of a eureka moment; understanding that it all links back to creating an online community for myself and bringing people together.
“And then, of course, I got good at it,” he grins.
Where it all began
Chris was born in Norwich in 1993 and enjoyed a happy childhood for many years.
Living in a village just outside the city, he was always outside playing football or building dens, and while he sometimes struggled to fit in with a particular peer group, being a naturally “chatty” boy he soon made good friends.
He also had loving parents and though they eventually separated, it was an amicable split and he still got to spend time with both, absorbing their strong work ethic and people skills, even if living between two houses occasionally made him feel unsettled.
So far, it’s a familiar story, experienced by so many children growing up.
Then, at the age of 14, everything changed.
Chris’s mother, Anne, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and, after battling the cancer for a year, she died.
“I have such vivid memories from that time,” Chris says.
“She had lovely, long brunette hair and I remember her friend cutting it in the kitchen because she was losing it due to the chemotherapy.
“In the end, she just became incredibly weak and couldn’t do anything.
“But when they said she had two weeks to live – obviously, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life – she actually lasted another two months. And I always like to tell that story because it sums up the strength she had. And that strength now lives within me – that kind of fight and desire, and determination not to give up just yet.”
With that positive mindset, Chris has clearly found a wonderful way to honour his mother’s memory, but as he says, it took time and help to get to this point.
In the immediate aftermath, how does a teenage boy process that kind of pain?
“You’re just desperately grabbing onto things that can help you tick a grief box, like going to the grave is one, or speaking to Grandma about her memories is one, or finding out who did the will is one.
“Some people were like firefighters, so there to help as the fire started, but then after it was seemingly put out, they abandoned us. Some people were so shocked and upset that they didn’t know how to be around us at all.
“But I have so much empathy for those people now because they just couldn’t handle it.
“On the whole, we’re terrible at talking about death and that’s something we really need to work on.
“Now I use my social platforms and my personal profile to talk about grief, loss, mortality and mental health.
“I feel very passionate about that.”
Finding a way forward
Having experienced such a devastating loss, Chris was understandably finding it hard to focus on schoolwork and by the time he took his GCSEs, he was just desperate to get out into the real world to start his life properly. Nevertheless, with his eye on a career in something creative, he went on to do a BTEC in Art Design at City College, working as a waiter and kitchen porter alongside his studies to earn money.
Still navigating a path through his grief, in his spare time he would paint Warhammer figures and he loved looking through coffee-table books of art or architecture, becoming absorbed in the designs. It was, he says, a kind of meditation; a way to find peace.
“I could get lost for hours looking at the photos, particularly Gaudi’s work in Barcelona,” he remembers. “Actually, my dream was to be an architect, but I was never smart enough. Could you imagine having the brainpower to create some of those buildings? That’s insane to me.”
At 18 years old, having finished his BTEC qualification, Chris was offered a marketing internship at Norwich City Football Club. He was a huge fan of the team having found solace being part of the crowd at games after his mum died, so it was the perfect role to start his new career.
This was also the time when he discovered the growing world of social media. The new digital medium was beginning to boom as he left school and with the focus on user-created content, it offered Chris a thrilling sense of personal power. He downloaded all the different apps and researched each format, learning all he could by examining his feed and seeing how the posts were curated.
Social media may be well established today, but back then everything was fresh and exciting and full of possibility. For Chris, it provided the creativity and freedom he needed in that moment.
“I have what I call the ‘one nil down mentality’,” he explains.
“I have always felt that I’ve been one nil down in life because of losing mum. But with social media everyone was on the same playing field. We were all starting from scratch. So I was like, wow, this is exciting! I can be who I want and I don’t need to conform to anything.
“That was hugely freeing.”
Having courage
The internship at Norwich City FC was for just a year and as it came to an end, Chris found himself back at square one with bad grades and no prospects.
He had already picked up his first social media client – his barber, who paid him £70 and a haircut – but it was still a long way off being his chosen career at this point.
He needed to find a job.
He tried the Job Centre but with the focus more on benefit claims than employment, it was not for him. He tried going round handing out CVs but with no luck. Finally, he snuck into a Norfolk Chamber B2B event at Norwich City using a fake name and his dad’s business as ID – as you do – hoping to connect with prospective employers and maximise his natural ability to engage face to face.
“I was just chatting to people, saying: I’m a young guy, I don’t have a job and I want to know more about your business,” he recalls, adding: “It’s the kind of thing that young people need to do more of today. They need to put themselves in challenging situations, to ask questions and have a go.
“So many of those coming up through the ranks now just cannot communicate. They don’t know how to talk to people because they are always behind a screen, and they almost expect everything to come to them. But, no, you need to be proactive because the world won’t land in your lap – you need to get out there.”
And to be fair, it worked for Chris.
The last person he spoke to at the event was a business writer called Robert Ashton, and through that conversation, he secured a two-year apprenticeship in business and enterprise. That alone was lucky, but Ashton was also a classic entrepreneur and he wrote a series of business books. In reading and marketing those, Chris was learning important lessons; lessons that would prove invaluable when it came to starting his own venture a few years down the line.
And just like that, he was on his way.
Finding love
Of course, life wasn’t all about work. At the age of 18, Chris also met Becky – the woman who would ultimately become his wife.
“I asked her out and then we just stayed forever,” he smiles.
He proposed at the top of Ben Nevis a few years later and they married in July 2021 at Norfolk Mead in Coltishall, before starting married life at their home in Costessey.
“I’m very fortunate to have an amazing wife,” he says fondly. “It’s difficult to be an entrepreneur full stop, and if you don’t have someone by your side to help alleviate that stress, it must be so hard.
“I know I can take risks because I genuinely have such a strong support at home.”
Today the couple live just outside Norwich with their two ragdoll cats, Monty and Lilly, and they enjoy visiting beautiful places where Chris can admire the architecture.
Meanwhile, back at work…
As his apprenticeship came to an end, Chris moved into his own flat in Norwich and landed a role at the local marketing agency, Conectia. He started out in affiliate marketing before moving into sales where he could use his “gift of the gab” to bring in more work.
Meanwhile, that same “gift” and a chance encounter after a football match, led to the start of his second career as a football pundit. He had just walked out of a Norwich City game when he saw a guy interviewing fans and, with a confidence that had already served him so well, Chris decided to share his thoughts.
“I just went up to him and offered to give my opinions, and it went down really well. Then I did it more and more because people enjoyed what I had to say.”
The man was Jack Reeve – “he’s got the same surname which is really weird” – and what started as a couple of guys just chatting about football on camera, has now become the hugely popular ‘Talk Norwich City’ podcast. It became the largest Norwich City fan channel on the internet, with a combined following of over 60,000 people across the multitude of platforms, and they have a range of local business sponsors supporting the show.
Of course, part of that success was born from Chris’s expertise in social media which he had been running as a sideline even back then.
The seeds of his future had been firmly planted – but he did not know it yet.
Indeed, Chris was still enjoying the creativity and scope of his marketing role and continued to pursue that career for the next year or so, even moving to another local agency for more experience. Unfortunately, at his new job he was the victim of workplace bullying and was not happy. In fact, after noticing a stark contrast to his usual bright demeanour, his wife eventually suggested that he might even be becoming depressed.
That was when he knew he had to quit.
Taking a leap
After some legal wrangling to exit the role, he left to start work at a tech company, but it was 2020 and, as the pandemic hit, Chris found himself out of work.
It was just the push he needed to start his own business.
“When Covid happened, I thought actually, I need to get a grip here and just do this. I love it, I’m really good at it and I can make an impact for clients. And that was it.
“Launching in the wake of the pandemic may have seemed insane to a lot of people, but actually it worked because everyone was thinking: we really need to up our game online, we really need to improve our social media, our website and our online marketing.
“So the business literally just took off. I almost feel a bit guilty for saying this, but I did not find it difficult at all when I started.”
You didn’t have to put yourself out there?
“I tried the networking scene but it was not for me.
“In fact, to begin with, I was trying to do all the things that ‘businesspeople’ did, but the longer I’ve gone on, the more I’ve realised that I just need to be me. Don’t try to be someone you’re not to win customers that you don’t actually want, right?
“And that is another important lesson.
“To begin with, I wanted to help anyone and everyone, but I quickly realised that I cannot be everyone’s saviour. Some people aren’t ready to be saved. We can’t be educating people on the power of social media in 2025, you know? I can’t help you if you don’t understand by this point how incredibly beneficial it is for your business.”
Any other key lessons for those starting a business?
“You need to know your numbers and you need a good accountant! I learned that the hard way.
“And it is so important to find trusted mentors.
“There are two people that have changed my career and therefore have changed my life.
“The first one is Matt Sykes from Salescadence. I have read both his books and I started his training quite early on. And, oh my god, it has helped me so much! It was an absolute light bulb moment for me. He’ll be all humble about it because that’s him, but I have applied so much of what he’s taught me.
“The second person is Gavin Drake who founded Mindspan.
“At 19 I did his Mindspan course – a self-psychology course – and that was fundamental to changing my grief from an anchor to a superpower. It helped me to understand the thinking cycle you go through; that your thoughts equal your behaviours equal your emotions which equal your outcomes. All of that was insanely powerful for me.
“Looking back, I feel fortunate that both of those people luckily crossed paths with me in life. They completely changed my career and I think that just highlights the importance of, if you’re in business and good people don’t come your way, you need to go out and you need to find good mentors in the areas where you struggle.”
Up to date
Today, Reeve Social Media offers consultancy, coaching and full management across all platforms, for a range of clients that include individuals, small businesses and large organisations.
Staying true to its foundations, Chris remains hyper-focused on just providing a comprehensive social media service, while a team of outsourced local professionals provide additional skills across other marketing areas where needed.
Alongside his growing business, Chris has continued to develop his media career to include a football show on BBC Radio Norfolk and spots on national broadcast platforms, and he continues to support The Big C – the cancer charity that helped his mum all those years ago.
In 2021, he even co-hosted a 24-hour fundraising show on YouTube, where they welcomed special guests, watched a Norwich City FC game and shared stories about grief and cancer.
“It was exhausting but worth it,” he grins.
They raised £23k and after the show, Chris was honoured to be invited as an official ambassador for the charity.
“That was a really proud moment.”
So, what’s next?
“My ultimate goal? I really want to raise a hundred grand for Big C. For me, that’s even more important than growing my business. It’s such an unsexy answer, but it’s the truth,” he smiles.
“More personally, I would love to start a family one day and I like to travel.
“I think my generation are more understanding of the fact that you don’t need to grind yourself into the ground. Of course, I’m very lucky that my work is my play too, but I’m conscious of growing to the degree that it then becomes a beast that I can’t control anymore. I just want to keep doing impactful work for good, kind, caring, local people.
“It all goes back to the start of my story. I don’t want to stress myself out to the degree that I don’t like what I do. That way, if I die young like my mum, I will not regret anything.
“Work for me is about unlocking more life because I’m so tuned into the fact that I could die literally anytime – then what’s the point?”
