Learnings from 50 other agencies

The majority of them who have established agencies utilise these three areas to expand their businesses. Naturally, a significant amount of hard work and effort is involved, as well as the expertise required in discipline.

Many individuals who establish agencies do so because they possess expertise in a specific discipline and wish to run their firm. Additionally, they leverage their networks, peer groups, and a collective of client contacts, along with other agencies that provide them with work. In reality, growing an agency, particularly reaching that first million pounds, is probably a relatively straightforward and common endeavour.

And make sure you’re specific about the evidence. If you’ve got a particular path in mind that you want to follow, whether that’s retention of people or driving revenue, make sure you know exactly what you’re measuring on a monthly basis. Another thing that’s often useful is sharing this with various people in the business.

So, it could be that you have targets around employee retention and how they might initiate a piece of work to drive higher levels of engagement in our team. You don’t necessarily need to do that as a business leader; it could be somebody else. You could decide that you need to improve the tech in your business, and that could be a task that’s pushed to somebody else in the business.

Start with a big ambition, then break it down into easily manageable actions. So that idea of 7, 30, 90, 180, 360— whatever works for you—is good. Ultimately, this process will give you a business plan on a page.

It will hold you accountable and ensure that you’re taking focus and making progress in areas of your business at any given time.