How to get stable growth running your agency

In writing this blog I’m keen to avoid rolling out all the clichés about unprecedented times, but I think it’s fair to say that the world has gone a little bonkers financially. We set off the early part of  the year (like most agencies) with lots of briefs coming in for digital projects. It really gave a unrealistic view of how busy we might be for the year ahead but also how busy our agency is going to be, come the back end of the year. Even knowing what I know as I have been doing for over 10 years, it is hard to get swept along with the moment of the early part of the year!

How are year so far has enfolded has been anything but straightforward but we have maintained growth! So perhaps, your agency has enjoyed growth in 2022, but it’s happened so quickly that you now want to get a grip and build on your success in a considered and sustainable way. No matter where your agency’s at if you’re hoping to grow you need to do it in a structured sustainable way that your team work to a shared goal of growth.

Using data to get growth

When an agency is actively seeking growth, it’s more about pushing processes forwards. It’s not just about making processes leaner and implementing efficiencies, but driving the agency’s entire position in the market. Where are you now, where do you want to be and what is your plan to get  you and your team to get a shared belief of getting there? You can’t answer these questions without data, stable and continual growth won’t just happen with a couple of big client wins. It’s about your agency’s direction and long-term ambition. You need solid business intelligence to put a growth strategy together and continually evaluate success.

Where are you making money, and where are you not? 

You need to know what you’re currently doing that’s working. Growth doesn’t just come from more work. If you want to grow your profits and not just your headcount, you need to have clarity on which project and client types are currently delivering a profit – not the ones that give you the most work, but the ones that give you the most return. If you just get more work and this work turns out to be less profitable, then you could find you grow your resource bill and your turnover, but not your profit. And you’ll create a bigger agency with more resources to manage, more projects to juggle, and more risk but with no more profits. I know as this has happened to us!

Get the right agency system in place!

It’s essential that you need  to start collecting data!  I recommend you get the right system now, rather than when you’ve grown. Many agencies wait until they’ve grown to get the right agency management system in place (we had to build our own at Adigi). But of course, if you’ve already grown, have you had access to the data and business intelligence needed to produce your growth plan? Do you know which projects, clients and skills are profitable and what a realistic target is? We have had to measure all of this to make a sustainable growth plan. The right system can have a transformative impact on your agency (again we have seen it) Real time data from a unified system brings a massive boost to productivity, efficiency, error reduction and client service. A complete agency and project management system will help you steer your agency and grow with you. It will provide facts on what’s working and what’s not and you’ll get visibility on crucial metrics in core areas of your agency. Progress on projects, profitability and performance of the team are all necessary for assessing decision making.

Track your leads and capacity

You need to have visibility of your pipeline and leads into the business. Ideally with the opportunity to assess the probability of conversion, along with visibility based on how likely it is to convert and how it will impact your capacity. To grow, you need more profitable projects and you need to know when it’s estimated to convert so you can plan your resource accordingly. Using expensive freelancers, or having under-utilised employees will eat into your profit, so planning around your pipeline and keeping your pipeline stuffed is key.

Having a grip on your pipeline also helps you manage client expectations. If you wait until a project go-ahead to consider the resource required and schedule the work, then your clients will find they’re waiting a long time for delivery, or you have to use costly freelancers. This problem intensifies the more projects you win and book in and the busier your calendar bookings become. You’lll need to plan ahead and keep your team in the loop on what is coming up and completion dates.

Summary

Hopefully I’ve given you and your team some food for thought on how to create stable growth for you and your agency! After trying lots of Saas platforms to help measure all of this we as an agency gave up and built our own agency system (it took lots of man hours during lockdown to do). This Agency specific project management system is now available to other agencies as a white label system. Easily integrated into your agency and If you do agree with the approach and are using lots of platforms to measure these outcomes I would love to hear from you and show our Agency management system. Please do get in-touch and let me know your thoughts.