Insights on agency growth, M&A strategy, and preparing for exit
Drawn from 25 years of building, scaling, and selling agencies as a founder, CEO, chair and consultant
Bags of cash
In 2007 we showed Virgin Holidays every pound in returned twenty-six. The budget doubled. AI now asks every agency a blunt question. Efficiency is no answer.
Twenty per cent growth is standing still
Take inflation, wage inflation and one lost client off a 20 per cent growth target and the agency ends the year where it started. Two years, three times.
Your leadership team cannot scale you
Your senior leadership team was hired to preserve what exists. Growth is a different job, done by a Growth Lab team drawn from every level of the business.
Swallows in a nest
The charisma that gets an agency to its first million teaches the team to wait to be fed. Past two or three million that becomes a ceiling, felt as stress.
The Case Study Problem
Good team, strong clients, four case studies on the website, the newest from 2022. One short case study a month roughly doubled contact page conversion.
The Founder's Network
All ten of an agency's last clients came through the founder personally. Nine months later, 40 per cent of new business came through channels without him.
The Quiet Client
Three clients left in eight weeks with no complaints and high survey scores. The work had drifted into maintenance. Nobody had done anything wrong.
The Wrong Hire
A head of new business produced nothing in six months. The proposition could have described any mid-size agency. The next hire closed two clients in a quarter.
The Quarterly Review
An agency's first real quarterly review found designers at 115 per cent utilisation and the biggest service line the least profitable. Half an hour of clarity.
The Referral System
Her new business came from referrals and she had no idea which clients sent them or why. A referral practice is a habit: know your advocates and ask.
The Pricing Problem
Day rates unchanged since 2020 meant the agency cut its price by RPI every year while clients raised theirs. Raise prices annually, without apologising.
The Annual Offsite
Two days in a country house produced a fifty-six-page strategy nobody could recall by January. Agencies that execute commit to fewer things, not tidier ones.
The Growth Lab Team
Strategy days produced plans nobody executed. A small team of future leaders who research, design and pilot the changes themselves changed the execution rate.
Research, Prototype, Implement
I once built a service line in a month and buried it in three. The method I use now is slow at the front: research, small pilot, then roll-out.
Let’s talk
If you’re serious about building significant value, preparing for an exit, or executing a roll-up strategy, get in touch below. I’ll respond personally.