Articles and resources for hardening the model, leading the team, and navigating the market.
Core thinking. Start here
These core articles convey the key concepts that underpin my approach to agency business. Start here if you want a sense of my thinking or want to read more but don’t know where to start.
Velocity not speed. A reminder that moving fast is dangerous if you are heading in the wrong direction. This article explains the vital difference between speed and velocity, and why most ‘stuck’ agencies don’t need more effort—they need better alignment and a clearer route.
What breaks first? A difficult question I ask founders to uncover points of critical failure and the bottlenecks that rob them of their freedom in the business. It is the starting point for building a business that can adapt, adapt, and carry on either without you or without breaking you.
Better not bigger. Rethinking growth as a goal. A challenge to the ‘Cult of Growth’ that often leads founders away from the lives they actually want. This article explores why growth is a tool, not a goal, and how to build a business that serves your personal ambitions rather than someone else’s metrics.
Beyond the craft: Expertise isn’t enough to build a successful agency. Deep expertise in your craft is rarely enough to build a successful agency. This article explores the fundamental shift from expert to entrepreneur, and the three priority gaps every founder must fill to move beyond ‘being on the tools’ and start building a business.
Where are the gaps?
Leading an agency is a balancing act between the founder, the machine, and the market. Explore the area that currently needs your attention.
Leadership
Leading the Self & Team: On the harder parts of leadership—decision quality, mental load, and the founder’s evolution.
- Traffic jams and sleepless nightsWhy leaders often do their best thinking in traffic or at 3am – and what that signals about business design.
- Why agencies fail to do what mattersA practical look at the blockers to execution discipline; clarity, prioritisation, noise, capability.
- What did you actually lead yesterday?A blunt test of how much of your time is spent on real leadership versus operational distraction.
Model
Engineering the Model: On the structural health of the business—metrics, delivery systems, and the mechanics of profitability.
- What is an agency anyway?Exploring the three pillars of strategy, delivery, and leverage that define a genuine agency business.
- What breaks first?A diagnostic exercise to identify structural bottlenecks and where a business is overly dependent on the founder.
- Your business, your Scorecard – Rethinking agency metricsWhy founder-led agencies should define success on their own terms, not inherit metrics from shareholder businesses.
Market
Navigating the Market: On intentional direction – positioning, strategy, and staying relevant in a shifting landscape.
- No more word of mouth. No more referralsWhy “word of mouth” and “referral” are lazy CRM labels that hide what actually drives new business.
- The web is toastWhy LLMs don’t just disrupt search, but undermine the web’s entire browse-and-click model.
- How to land new clients with a single LinkedIn postA practical breakdown of how trust, consistency, and a clear ask turn LinkedIn into a repeatable client channel.
Agency toolbox
Practical frameworks, calculators and agency intelligence to help you audit your agency and implement structural changes.
- The Agency Loop : Quarterly agency data and peer insights. Free for contributors
- Try this : Practical and proven ways to improve your agency (email list)
- Agency utilisation & recovery calculator : A tool for modelling team capacity and identifying billable time leakage.
- Retainer lifetime value spreadsheet : A calculator for determining the long-term value of recurring client contracts.
Archived resources
No longer actively maintained, but preserved for posterity and utility
- How to sell an agency podcast : Interviews with exited founders about their build->sell journey
- No dumb (agency) questions : Video series giving straight answer to anonymous agency questions