All articles
Everything I’ve written, newest first. 38 articles.
- Nobody has ever refused my clients’ price rise
Agencies believe putting prices up causes churn. Across every rise I have been part of, nobody refused and nobody left. The resistance is ours, not theirs.
- The Oh Shit Document
A single file a trusted person can reach if you're suddenly out of the picture, so someone can keep your agency alive. What it is, why you need one, and what goes in it.
- You’re irreplaceable… and that’s the problem
Most agency founders are the one person the business can't run without. Why that dependency is a real risk, what the Agency Loop data shows, and how to start fixing it.
- The week that never comes
The calm week where everything is finally under control never actually arrives. Why founders keep waiting for it, and how to take time for important work instead.
- Stop training your team to ignore you
Announce enough initiatives you don't follow through on and your team learns to tune you out. How founders train people to ignore them, and how to break the habit.
- What is an agency anyway?
Exploring the three pillars of strategy, delivery, and leverage that define a genuine agency business.
- Traffic jams and sleepless nights
Why leaders often do their best thinking in traffic or at 3am, and what that signals about business design.
- No more word of mouth. No more referrals
Why “word of mouth” and “referral” are lazy CRM labels that hide what actually drives new business.
- 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, and carry on either without you or without breaking you.
- Why agencies fail to do what matters
A practical look at the blockers to execution discipline; clarity, prioritisation, noise, capability.
- Your business, your Scorecard – Rethinking agency metrics
Why founder-led agencies should define success on their own terms, not inherit metrics from shareholder businesses.
- The web is toast
Why LLMs don’t just disrupt search, but undermine the web’s entire browse-and-click model.
- What did you actually lead yesterday?
A blunt test of how much of your time is spent on real leadership versus operational distraction.
- How much is a retainer client ACTUALLY worth?
Most agencies value retainer clients wrong. How to work out true lifetime value using cohorts and survivorship, and why the real number changes how you run the business.
- Agency CRMs – Analysis and recommendations
How agencies actually use CRMs, the features that matter most for agency work, and practical recommendations rather than the usual suspects.
- Leave cash on the table – Do your agency finances need to grow up?
Cash versus accrual accounting for agencies, with a worked example. Why the approach most founders default to hides how the business is really performing.
- Give more. Take less.
The case for doing more things without an immediate, measurable return, and why generosity without a scorecard tends to pay off in ways you can't plan for.
- 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.
- Rethinking the hustle: Should we really ‘Work hard, retire early’ ?
The 'work hard, retire early' playbook is broken for most agency founders. Here's what a more sustainable version of ambition actually looks like.
- Stop hiding in your blanket fort
Under pressure we retreat to the parts of the work we are good at and enjoy. Mine is the spreadsheet. Why those safe places feel productive without solving anything.
- Unplugging BossGPT: Why you need to stop being your team’s answer engine
If you're answering the same questions every week, you've accidentally become your team's AI. Here's how to stop. And what to build instead.
- How to land new clients with a single LinkedIn post
A practical breakdown of how trust, consistency, and a clear ask turn LinkedIn into a repeatable client channel.
- Luckscaping: Getting proactive about being lucky in business
Luck isn't random; it's shapeable. Here's how agency founders can deliberately put themselves in positions where good things are more likely to happen.
- Want a smarter agency? Get a brain
Cracking knowledge management within our agency was one of the most impactful changes we made. This article lays out what finally worked for us, and has since worked for clients.
- Tick Tick Tick… here comes the communications explosion
Lines of communication grow faster than headcount does, so growth reliably tips an agency from "this is going well" to "it's all falling apart". How to limit the damage.
- Close it, Sell it or Die
Your involvement with your agency ends one of three ways. Knowing which one you are aiming for changes the business you build today.
- 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.
- It’s time to focus on what is important to your agency, not what is urgent
Urgent work crowds out important work, and agencies are especially prone to it. Planning, organisation and discipline are the three free fixes.
- I think I’m going to stop using the C Word
Why I am dropping "agency coach" and calling myself an agency advisor instead. Three reasons the label stopped fitting the work.
- The State of AI Use in Agencies
Three pieces of original 2022 research into AI text generation: an agency leaders survey, an end user attitudes survey and a randomised blind trial.
- Are GenZ really replacing Google with TikTok? New data
Google said nearly 40% of young people search TikTok and Instagram over Google. I ran an independent study to check. The real number is nowhere near it.
- The Referral Trap That Agencies Keep Falling Into
Referrals are a great source of new business and a dangerous thing to depend on. Why "all our work comes from referrals" should set off alarm bells.
- Why are you even writing that blog post?
Blogging because you read somewhere that you should is expensive and pointless. Five questions that give every piece of content a clear purpose.
- Who holds the keys to your digital empire?
We guard our banking PIN but hand out domain and hosting logins without a thought. Which credentials actually matter, and how to manage them properly.
- Learning to love imposter syndrome
Imposter syndrome is not something to beat or avoid. It is what improvement feels like, and some people could do with feeling it rather more often.
- The 5 Business books that changed my life
Five business books that genuinely changed how I worked, and why each one landed when it did. Not a best-of list; the ones that shifted my career.
- Hello (again) world
Twenty-five years after registering my first domain for a paying client, I am stepping away from the company I built with my father. This is where I work out what comes next.