«Growing fast is easy to celebrate and hard to steer.»
An independent agency that has grown quickly, in a sector being rewritten from underneath: algorithm changes on the platforms, price pressure and AI eating into the tactical work that until yesterday was billed by the hour. The will to grow was there; the system to steer that growth wasn't.
The diagnosis by dimension said it plainly. The leadership team didn't share a clear view of the strategy. The service offering was tactical and poorly differentiated, and that—not the quality of the work—was what kept the deal size from going up. Sales depended almost entirely on the CEO. And the leadership hadn't made a habit of looking at operating finances: they saw revenue, not profitability per account.
Before selling more, being able to see. First the data, then the tools that make use of it, and only then the rituals that keep it moving. Without all three layers at once the system doesn't work: without clean data the tools lie, and without rituals neither the data nor the tools change a single decision.
Management can now answer, at any moment, how much each client costs, who has capacity to spare and what is still to be invoiced. Before, that came to light when the project closed, when it was already too late.
A control system costs time: between 8% and 9% of the team's hours. We calculated it on their real portfolio before building it, not after, and compared it with what well-run agencies spend. If the number hadn't added up, the recommendation would have been different.
What's next. Continuous improvement, CRM, call centre and centralising information.
You decide which cookies we use
With your permission, we measure, in aggregate, how quether.com is used and remember your visit to show you Quether ads on Facebook and Instagram. You can accept everything, reject everything or choose. More detail in our cookie policy.
