Exclusive Strategies for Scaling Agencies [Webinar Recap]
TL;DR – Key Takeaways
- Profit problems often stem from bad habits, not bad clients.
- Revenue means nothing without understanding margin.
- Growth requires upfront investment—don’t delay hiring or systems.
- Specialisation leads to stronger margins and simpler delivery.
- Build profit into your pricing from the start.
- Broken workflows and poor time tracking kill profit.
- Don’t discount to win—protect your value.
What's Really Holding Agencies Back From Profit?
Running a profitable agency is hard. Scaling one without compromising quality, overextending your team, or eroding margins? That’s even harder.
On our recent Magnetic webinar, we tackled this challenge head-on. The session— Exclusive Strategies for Scaling Agencies—From Those Who’ve Done It—brought together two of the sharpest minds in the business of agency operations and growth.
We were joined by Craig Rodney, founder of The Agency Coach and a seasoned agency leader who now helps owners build more profitable, scalable businesses. Alongside him, Megan Adams, Head of Business Intelligence at Joe Public, shared the hard-won insights that come from building data-driven systems and managing complex delivery across one of South Africa’s leading full-service agencies.
This blog breaks down all the key themes and takeaways. If you didn’t catch the webinar—or just want the condensed version—read this instead.
1. Profitability Problems Start with Habit, Not Clients
Many agencies begin with an abundance of time and very little structure. In those early days, it's common to take on any work, over-deliver to impress clients, and discount rates to stay competitive. Over time, these behaviors become the default—even as the agency grows and time becomes the most constrained and valuable asset.
This legacy mindset—undervaluing time, undercharging, and over-servicing—results in a business that’s fundamentally misaligned with profitability. It creates a disconnect between the effort being put in and the revenue being generated.
To break this cycle, agencies need to reassess how they price, scope, and deliver work. Time must be treated as premium stock. Discounting and reactive client servicing need to be replaced with commercial discipline and process.
2. Revenue Doesn’t Tell You What’s Working—Profit Does
High revenue services and clients often feel like “success stories,” but they may be eroding profitability behind the scenes. Without visibility into what work costs to deliver—per service, per team, per client—agencies end up scaling inefficient offerings that look good on paper but drain internal resources.
The only way to make informed decisions about what to scale and where to focus is through accurate tracking of time and margin. This means not only monitoring timesheets, but also analysing project delivery versus scope, understanding over-servicing patterns, and comparing revenue against effort across clients.
This is where business intelligence becomes essential—not just for finance or reporting, but for strategic growth planning.
3. Growth Isn’t Free—And That’s Okay
Scaling an agency adds complexity. But many businesses try to grow without investing in the infrastructure to support that growth—delaying key hires, skipping systems implementation, or stretching teams to their limits. This creates burnout, bottlenecks, and delivery issues that compound over time.
To scale successfully, agencies must be willing to accept short-term dips in profit in exchange for long-term gains in capacity, efficiency, and delivery quality. This may mean hiring before a new contract is signed, or introducing a new system before things are “breaking.”
Growth must be supported with intentional investment in people, process, and tools.
4. Specialisation vs Full-Service: Know Your Model
Agencies offering a wide range of services often find themselves stretched operationally, with delivery teams juggling conflicting workflows, inconsistent scopes, and uneven quality control. This makes repeatable success difficult—and often results in lower margins.
Specialised agencies are better positioned to systemise delivery, hire purposefully, and position themselves as experts. That means they can charge more, deliver faster, and win work more efficiently.
A full-service model can work—but only with significant investment in systems, cross-functional collaboration, and high-calibre talent. Most agencies don’t have the scale or infrastructure to make that model work profitably.
5. Prioritise Profit—Not Just Revenue
Most agencies treat profit as something that happens if things go well. But a healthier approach is to build profit into every project from the start. This means setting a target margin (e.g. 20%) and removing it from the project budget before any delivery planning begins.
This approach creates pressure in the right places—forcing better scope control, smarter pricing, and more rigorous resourcing. Rather than trimming profit at the end to cover overages, it forces a more realistic delivery plan from day one.
6. Operational Friction Is a Hidden Profit Leak
Most inefficiencies can be traced back to broken workflows: vague briefs, unclear task ownership, missed deadlines, work stuck in review, or client-driven changes derailing production. These issues not only waste time—they kill margin and demoralise teams.
Standardising your delivery process—from how jobs are briefed and scheduled, to how capacity is managed and tracked—is essential. The more that delivery is repeatable and visible, the more scalable your business becomes.
Agencies must also be willing to push back on clients who demand unrealistic deadlines or introduce late-stage revisions without understanding the operational impact.
7. Timesheets Are a Business Tool—Not a Burden
Accurate time tracking remains one of the most critical elements of agency profitability. Without it, everything else—profitability analysis, scope control, pricing models—is based on assumptions.
However, many teams resist time tracking because it’s seen as micromanagement. The reality is the opposite: time data protects the team from over-servicing, under-resourcing, and unrealistic delivery expectations.
Beyond compliance, the focus should be on accuracy. Incomplete or padded time entries skew all downstream decision-making. Agencies should normalise honesty, eliminate fear of judgment, and use time data to improve—not punish.
8. Pricing Pressure Isn’t an Excuse to Undersell
Agencies often accept unprofitable work to “get a foot in the door” or because they fear saying no. But consistently discounting rates to win business undermines long-term sustainability.
Pricing should be based on clear internal calculations: team salaries, target margins, and billable capacity. If a client budget doesn’t align, the correct response is to reduce scope—or walk away.
Trying to deliver the same volume at a discounted rate results in poor work, unhappy teams, and unsatisfied clients. Protecting pricing integrity is not about being rigid—it’s about preserving the agency’s ability to do good work.
Final Thought: Discipline Builds Profit
There’s no magic lever for agency profitability. It’s built over time through better habits, tighter operations, data-led decision-making, and pricing confidence. Agencies that focus on the fundamentals—repeatable delivery, accurate data, and strategic planning—build businesses that scale without chaos and sustain profit over the long term.
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