What Would You Do If You Were This Agency Founder?
I had a chat with an agency owner earlier in the week.
He is a pretty dynamic guy – really good at what he does.
His business is pretty good. A little over $1mm in revenue with 40% net margins. He doesn’t have too many complaints – he could just ride that for a few years and retire early if he were frugal (he is a young guy).
He did say that sometimes he wished his agency was less reliant on him, though. He still runs sales, he still runs client strategy & he still does some delivery.
When I asked him why he didn’t start improving the quality of his team, he said
“That’s hard. I am terrible at delegation & communication. I am good at doing stuff.“
Since his life is pretty good financially, you might think he doesn’t really have any issues – he should just continue on as is and stack cash.
That might, in fact, be the right choice for him…who knows?
Here’s A Path To Creating More Time, A Better Team, and More Enterprise Value
If I were in that position, I think I’d really start focusing on the following:
- I’d read Chapters 6-10 of Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink until it was burned in my brain. It makes the idea of “accomplish the mission” and all of the needed communication strategies pretty simple to understand. Then I would practice delegation and communication skills on non-client facing projects.
- I’d start investigating if anybody on my team is ready to step up into a leadership position. If they are, I would start letting them shadow me more. They already know how I work and can likely accommodate for my communication issues, and over time, can take on some of the things I do.
- I would look into hiring a part time lead gen/demand gen resource and a part time sales resource to start building out effective opportunity flow.
- I would also look into hiring a part time client strategist to guide the delivery team on adjustments and changes. This would certainly take a significant cognitive and time load off of me.
Sure, this agency owner might have to spend $100K in salaries to get those part time resources on board, but that takes so much of the pressure off of the founder. Plus those resources will likely pay you back at least $300K in revenue and $100K in profit in the next 9 -18 months. (And well beyond that too.)
Why Go Through The Hassle?
On the other side of this learning curve of delegation, communication and management, this agency owner would have an agency that demanded less of his current skills, giving him to time to develop more skills – partnerships, going upmarket, recruiting, etc.
It would allow for him to think about trajectory-altering engagements (whale hunting), or more aggressive strategic endeavors like adding additional services, etc.
Perhaps most of all, that kind of action will generate a dramatic increase in enterprise value.
A successful business should grow beyond its absolute need for the founder. As the business matures, the growth of the founder is critical. As I often term my marketing agency clients,
“The goal isn’t to be the best marketer in your firm, it’s becoming the best LEADER of marketers in your firm.”
The result of this work and effort to elevate the founder to the role of a leader is profound:
- Your team gets better.
- Your revenue and number of profit dollars improve.
- You get to grow and learn new things.
- You create an asset that has real enterprise and it can be acquired OR it can be managed by someone else.
Want To Create An Agency Growth Path Of Your Own?
That’s what we do. Learn more about our Agency Growth Programs.
Want to hang out with us in other ways?
Join our free Agency Inner Circle Newsletter & Slack Channel or get weekly missives on entrepreneurship and management with our Focus Friday Newsletter.
