How to choose an advisor, coach or NED for your agency

It’s not uncommon to find that agency founders who engage me as an advisor have been thinking about getting help for some time. The realisation that an additional senior brain in the business would be useful often comes much easier than finding and choosing the right one to work with. Agency coaches, mentors, advisors and NEDs are no longer rare (I talk about the differences more on What is an agency advisor?). But it can be hard to sort good from the bad and harder still to find the “right good” for you. I’m obviously not without some bias on this topic, but I thought it would be useful to provide some guidance on how to find an advisor that will match your needs and really drive your agency forward in a way that works for you. I’ll do my very best to be even-handed with this.

Work out what kind of problem you have

My skillset and experience in agencies is pretty general, which is mostly a benefit but, at times, a weakness. No particular area of challenge puts me off, but if a founder’s challenges all sit in a single area (all finance, or all people problems for example), I’ll always take a moment to consider if I am the best match. I know, and learn from, a number of great specialists: finance directors, ops consultants, HR advisors, lawyers, new business specialists etc, and I am not shy to introduce them when one of them can resolve a problem better or faster than I would.

Luckily, though, for a generalist like me, most problems aren’t so neatly siloed. Even when they feel like they might be, the reality is often messier. Connected problems still often need cross-discipline thinking to resolve. New business is the most common example of this. There is sometimes a tendency for agencies to see new business as the answer to everything. “We just need to land a couple of bigger clients and everything will be fine.” However, the problems we think new business will solve are often interlinked with others such as profitability or retention. Even when new business is the answer, it can need delivery processes or capacity addressed first to make room for it. And, for the size of agency I work with, founder capacity is often at the centre of many challenges.

A rough test: write down the problems keeping you up at night. If they all sit in one place, go and find the specialist. If they keep pointing at each other, you want someone who can look across the whole business. Be honest, though. Consider my new business example above: will solving the one area fix the problem, or just move the bottleneck along to the next one?

Where to find agency advisors (coaches, NEDs etc)

There are a few marketplace-type sites for this, but I really think this is somewhere where referrals are king. Ask other agency connections who they know, or ask for recommendations in any communities or groups you are part of. Much as I would love to say “Search Google for ‘agency advisor’ and talk to the top few” (because that usually includes me!), word of mouth has real value here. If you don’t know who to ask, then LinkedIn is the natural hangout of agency advisors of all types. A good shortcut is to search for advisors who are first- or second-degree connections of yours. That will surface candidates who already move in your circles and hopefully give you some mutual connections who you can drill for information.

Increasingly it is our AI tools “making recommendations” to us for partners to work with. It’s a great shortcut in many ways as our AI agents already know a lot about our business and challenges and will surface advisors at least talking about similar themes. I semi-regularly get “referrals” from ChatGPT and Claude who have suggested me to agency founders seeking support. They’ve generally been good matches, so there is certainly value in this route, but I’d definitely keep an eye on why particular names were recommended and check the references. AI search is still quite new and easily gamed by the less scrupulous.

Find out how they work

You don’t just need to find someone who knows the subject; you also want someone who works in a way that is going to match what will work for you. This is quite subjective, but there are some questions that are worth asking to better understand this:

How hands-on are they? Some advisors are entirely hands-off. It’s a regular conversation, then it’s back to you. Others get deeply involved, delivering real work within the business. Experienced advisors lay this out clearly from the start so that you can find the right person for you. I’m somewhere in the middle. My support is based on advice and guidance, but I allow time for a limited amount of more hands-on work. This is often used to help set things up and get work moving or to review and analyse. That works for me and my founders, but other agency founders might want someone more deeply involved day to day.

Framework or bespoke? Many advisors and coaches bring a framework. Sometimes that is just marketing dressed up as process; other times it is a structured way of working. Structured frameworks can have real advantages in some situations. They’re practised processes that are repeated and tuned. They become efficient over time, and if that process matches your needs, it works. Bespoke is, as it suggests, built around you. Ask which one you’re getting. If it’s a framework, understand whether it is a genuine match for your situation or something you will be squeezed into. For reference, I follow a loose framework at the start of the engagement, but that is more about discovering where we can be most effective for a more bespoke ongoing engagement.

Is it coaching alone? The market has exploded with coaches in the last few years. These are often focused more on the personal development side of the work rather than the business, which means there is less need for first-hand experience of agency leadership. My belief is that personal coaching is an important part of the work, but having the right attitude and being effective aren’t going to fix problems in a business by themselves. Accountability in isolation has the same limit. Twice I’ve worked with founders who had been through quite slick coaching programmes that put all the focus on new business. We ended up with busy, chaotic companies where everyone was stressed and the business wasn’t that profitable. Customers were coming in, yes, but they were leaving too, and nobody was making much money in the meantime. I see coaching as a solid option when you already have support in place to cover the business issues. If you are talking to advisors who position themselves solely as coaches, it is worth extra time to understand their experience and what types of problems they can support you with.

What happens between calls? This is always worth checking, as most of us don’t consider the work done when the Zoom call ends. Is any work being done between the calls? Who is chasing who? Is your advisor available for calls/emails between sessions and is that time metered? What channels of communication are available?

Check the experience is relevant

Experience isn’t just about who served the most years at the biggest agency. What matters is experience relevant to your business and your challenges. Find someone who has run agencies like yours. Similar size, similar models. There is a world of difference between running a 30-person development agency and a 3-person design studio. What was their own agency experience? What types of agencies are listed in their public references? When you talk to them, go into their experience with the actual challenges you face, rather than assuming every expert has solved every problem before; we all attract different work.

I’d always be cautious of anyone whose method is just their own past success, repackaged. I’m aware of the factors that went into the modest success of my own agency. Some were in my control and some weren’t, and it needed both. I wrote about that in Luckscaping. I’m proud of what we did in my agency, but if I gave a new founder a blueprint of what we did, the results would be very different today. The specific steps we took are less relevant now than how we decided and executed them. There’s a habit in this industry of acting like what worked in the past will work again today, with books built on ageing blueprints quoting numbers that are decades out of date. I don’t think that’s ever been helpful. With everything changing as quickly as it is, it’s probably less helpful now than it has ever been.

When talking to potential advisors, I would suggest less focus on their success (or otherwise), and more on their methods: what did you run, how did it go, and what would you do differently now? It’s fine if things didn’t work out. It’s not fine if they haven’t learned the lessons from it. Good decisions and good outcomes are not always the same.

Remember the fit works both ways

The nature of an advisory relationship is that you will be spending quite a lot of time one-to-one with whoever you eventually work with. Usually several hours a month together, even if “together” is over Zoom/Meet/Teams. Choosing an advisor who you will actually enjoy spending that time with not only makes for more enjoyable working, but can actually mean developing a more productive relationship more quickly.

It’s worth remembering, though, that whilst you are checking out potential advisors to see if they are a match, they are probably doing the same to you. Good advisors are in demand and will also be looking to match with founders who they will have an enjoyable and productive working relationship with and who they think will get the most out of working with them. I frequently discourage great agency founders from working with me. Sometimes they need a specialist. Sometimes they need someone more hands-on. Sometimes it’s culture, values or plain chemistry. Occasionally the challenge is too similar to other work I’m doing, or isn’t one that particularly entices me at that point, and I know I won’t do my best work on it. I’m fortunate to get enough enquiries to be able to select based on all of those criteria.

Sometimes I will even strongly encourage a prospect to talk to “competitors” before coming back to me. This isn’t to put them off, but to help them decide. Particularly when the brief isn’t too clear. I’d rather wait a couple of weeks for someone new to come along than work with the wrong founder.

Ask yourself whether you’re ready to be advised

My pre-engagement calls are not particularly structured. I use them to find out more about the business, the founder and the challenges they see, but I am following conversation rather than a script. I’m certainly trying to understand the challenges, but also how I could most effectively work with each agency founder who comes to me. Importantly, those calls also give me an opportunity to “dig deeper than the symptoms” and start to get a feel for what the underlying causes might be. Pre-engagement calls often include me giving some suggestion or early piece of advice. This isn’t really by design, but just a product of the way I think and work.

How that probing and those suggestions are received is sometimes surprising. Not everyone is ready to change and take advice. I certainly don’t expect anyone to run with every piece of advice I give and I actively invite pushback. Sometimes, though, it crosses a line to defensiveness. A bit of resistance or reluctance is fine; that can be worked on as part of the job. If there’s no willingness to change, or a sense that someone wants a magic wand waved, I don’t know that I can really help. For any advisory work to have value, you have to be ready to take on advice, make changes and make the time to do both. We’re not always ready for that and it’s worth asking yourself whether you are before you get too far into your search.

Budget for the time it takes

It is worth budgeting for six to twelve months. You’ll usually see and feel benefits in the first couple of months, but real lasting change does take time. Some advisors do expect a minimum term (I don’t), but even when there is none, it is sensible to expect and plan for at least a six-month engagement rather than risk having to pause or stop work before you feel the full payoff.

It’s worth noting that those benefits rarely feel dramatic as they arrive. If an advisor is doing their job properly, the change should mostly be noticeable when you take a breath and look back. Things feel like they’re running more smoothly. There’s a greater sense of control. Decisions get made more deliberately and with more focus. Whatever goals you’ve set (hopefully more clearly defined ones than when you started) get moved towards more quickly and consistently.

Timing is most critical when the challenge is new business or profitability. All too often, founders wait too long and leave it far too late to get help. Engaging an advisor becomes a panic decision rather than a strategic move and the engagement becomes a race to stop the leaks before things get too dire. If you can’t fund a consistent run, it’s usually better to wait until you can. Stopping and starting rarely works well.

Questions to ask any advisor

• What kinds of problem would you send to someone else?
• Have you run, or worked with, agencies like mine: similar type, similar size, similar clients?
• How hands-on are you in practice, and what does that look like week to week?
• Are you bringing a framework, or working it out with me? If it’s a framework, how does it fit us specifically?
• What happens between calls? Are you available in between, and is that time metered?
• Is there a minimum term?
• How will we know it’s working?
• What did you run, how did it go, and what would you do differently now?
• Would you suggest I talk to anyone else first?

Five for yourself as well:

• Is my own capacity at the centre of these problems?
• Am I prepared to change something?
• Can I make the time for this, as well as the money?
• Can I fund this for six to twelve months?
• What would a successful engagement look like for me and for the business? What will change as a result?

Choosing an advisor to work with can be a big decision for some. Much as I love it when founders make contact and we decide to work together quickly, it is usually slower than that. If nothing is urgent, I genuinely think it can be a good move to talk to a few and get to know a couple before committing. About half of my founders are people who have got to know me by getting involved in some of the industry initiatives I run long before they were ready to pull the trigger on engaging someone.

If you have read all of that and would either like to talk about working together, or are still wondering where to start, get in touch. I’ll tell you honestly whether I feel we’re a fit and give you some great names to speak to if we’re not.