Practical guides and deep-dives for running a better organization - from client intake to project delivery.
Hire against three months of sustained overrun, not a busy fortnight. Why delivery comes before sales, the arithmetic of 1,000 billable hours, interviewing for judgement, and the first ninety days.
Four functions every agency must cover, the roles that emerge as you grow, why splitting account from project management matters, and the signals your current shape has stopped working.
Contractors buy flexibility, not cheaper hours. When they are right, the brief that prevents most problems, rates and payment, the client-facing question, and building a bench you can rely on.
Ship something to a client in week one and own a small relationship by week four. Work ready on day one, a named contact, the delegation conversation, and the 30-60-90 reviews.
The research is clear that burnout is structural. The four causes specific to agencies, the early signals worth watching, the interventions that work, and the ones that do not.
Specialising changes what you are compared against, compounds your expertise and sharpens referrals. The four ways to niche, how to choose, and how to start without refusing work.
Referrals, partnerships, narrow content, account expansion and specific outreach - plus the channels that mostly fail for agencies and why. How to pick two and what to do when the pipeline is empty.
A referral needs a specific ask, the right moment and a thank-you that closes the loop. Why the usual ask fails, exactly what to say, whether to pay, and the referrers who are not clients.
Gross margin, net margin, utilization, realisation, project margin spread, debtor days, WIP and cash runway - what each tells you, how to read them together, and building a 20-minute review.
