I Grow & Monetise Podcasts | CEO & Founder of Voics | Podcast Host at Kickoff Sessions

Most people think scaling to $1M+ is about posting more, working harder, or hiring faster.

It’s not.

It’s about building a simple ecosystem:

One offer. One content engine. One sales system that scales without you.

At Voics, we help coaches and agency owners grow from $20K to $100K/month and beyond by installing this exact Ecosystem.

The model is simple:

Offer – Build a painkiller offer that’s easy to sell and hard to say no to.
Content – Create assets that generate leads, not likes.
Sales – Design a simple sales system to close more clients.

We’ve helped over 500 agency owners and coaches to generate over $30M in client revenue.

Darren Lee

7 brutal lessons from scaling to multiple 7 figures: 

1. People won’t understand

You’ll lose friends and maybe your network along the way.

Not everyone will get your vision, and that’s fine.

2. No one will care like you

No one will care as much as the business owner.

Otherwise it would be their business.

3. You carry the emotional weight

The emotional load of your clients and team falls on you.

You will wear this across your face daily.

4. You’ll chew glass on the frontline

You’ll chew glass in the heat of battle.

You’ll develop scars that will become wisdom one day.

5. Your identity will limit you

You’ll only scale as far as your personal development.

Limiting beliefs, ego, and jealousy will ruin your business.

6. You need to outlast everyone

Competitors will copy you until they “burn down their business” and start padel.

You simply have to outlast everyone else.

7. Your personal problems will follow you

Every problem in your life will manifest as a business problem.

The only solution is to solve your personal shit.

But…

Once you crack it…

Every dream you had as a child becomes a reality.

Because in the end, everyone else complained, whined, and quit.

Stay in the game.
Chew glass on the frontline.

👇 LIVE workshop to scale your sales & revenue

I was sitting next to a billionaire at a mastermind.

The guy made $1.2B a year. Yes, a year.

He was the most unassuming guy ever. 
Normal clothes, no flash. 

Here’s what hit me:

If you think you know everything, you know nothing.

This guy was running a billion-dollar biz.

He was still taking notes, asking questions, and learning like a complete beginner.

Every time I'm in these rooms, I’m reminded of 3 simple things:

1. The gap between where I am and where I want to be.

2. The danger of getting complacent.

3. The power of being around people further ahead.

Not because they’re smarter, but because they fixed the one degree shifts in their business. 

And I mean this respectfully:

They’re not better than you.
They’re not smarter than you.
They just did the work.

And they got the right assistance at the right time.

This is why the right info matters.

-
P.S. I'm running a LIVE Masterclass tomorrow online. 

If you want to scale your business to 7-figures, register via the comments.

Helping coaches and agency owners grow a 7-figure business they don’t need to quit.

How to become irrelevant in 2026:

Copy everyone else’s frameworks.
Use everyone else’s scripts.
Blend into the background.

That’s how most people become obsolete.

Here’s how to become a category of one:

Use your story as your leverage.

When everything can be automated…

- Funnels built in 5 minutes
- Offers copied overnight
- AI running your entire biz

The only true advantage left is you.

Your weird quirks.
Your failures.
Your unfair beliefs.
Your personal journey.

That’s what people buy into.

Not your “program.”
Not your “system.”

The truth is 90% of products are basically identical.

Especially if you're selling info. 

Your origin story is what makes you untouchable.

Your mission, your values, your unique edge.

That’s how you build a biz around you in 2026.

You can create your own world.

I married my best friend with no one at the wedding.

We ate at “Nacho Daddy” for dinner.

Smashed some nachos and tacos.

Didn’t even tell anyone we got married.

No fancy BS. 

No honeymoon to Cape Town needed. 

I recorded four podcasts over the next 72 hours.

You can do whatever tf you want in this life.

I became a liquid millionaire in my 20s.

Now at 29 years old, I can tell you the first million is the hardest.

I chewed glass on the front line for YEARS.

I had three failed businesses before 23 years old.

Failed at running events.
Failed at dropshipping socks.
Failed at building software.

At every point, I was missing something crucial…

Then, once I passed $1M, the next million was “easier.”

Not easy, but easier.

Once you understand it’s nothing to do with the business.

And all to do with the skill.

You stop chasing the next business model.

And start chasing the never-ending pursuit of the skill.

Learn product.
Learn marketing.
Learn sales.

Because whether it’s selling B2B software or agency services…

It’s not just the scars that follow you.

But the skills do too.

Chew glass to $1M, then use the skill to get to $10M.

How would you triple your biceps and business?

Genuinely…

If you had no constraints, what would you do?

Well, my coach’s advice to me was pretty simple:

If you want to triple your biceps, train them every single day.

Do it first.
Do it when you’re at peak energy.
Don’t throw it to the side at the end of a workout.

Then complain about it while doing half-effort three months later.

It’s the same for your business.

If you want to triple your business…

You triple your outreach.
Triple your call volume.
Triple your marketing efforts.

Sounds kind of obvious, right?

Now, you might not exactly triple your business (or biceps).

But it would be pretty cool if you doubled it.

Are you building a sand castle or an empire?

Most online businesses are like a sand castle:

Look decent from a distance.

But the second you touch them, they fall apart.

Hyper-emotional “founder.”
Overly sensitive emotions.

Lead flow more like a rusty pipe.
Absolutely zero throughput.

And a sales process designed by Frankenstein.

No wonder scaling feels “hard.”
No wonder they “quit” for the next shiny thing.

The bigger the sand castle, the harder the fall.

When you set out to build an empire, you work on foundations.

You follow the 3 Ps of Empire Building:

Product:
Is your product scalable, repeatable, and enjoyable to deliver?

Process:
Do you have a systematic way to deliver insane results?

People:
Do you have the right people in the right seats who know exactly what to do?

Without the three Ps, shit starts to crumble.

You’ll never scale past the foundations of the business.

Take a good hard look at what you built, is it an empire or a sand castle?

This is a no-bullshit guide to scaling a top 1% sales team:

(From a guy who runs a 10+ person sales team that generates $500K/mo)

1. Product

Our products are scalable, repeatable, and enjoyable to sell.

After 5 years, we serve the entire market with different offers.

This theory is called the Ecosystem Model I personally developed.

(many people steal it lol)

If you have a digital business of any size, we can help you scale.

2. People

I will always be incredibly ruthless with people selection.

I want the right people, in the right seats, doing the right thing.

If you’re a princess, you will be cut.

If you think you’re different, you will be cut.

I don’t need individuals. I need killers.

3. Process

You can only scale to the level of your processes.

I built a tech company that manages the end-to-end sales process with AI.

We use AI to track calls, manage the pipeline, schedule calls, and squeeze every inch of juice left in the system.

(This is actual AI, not those ChatGPT wrappers lol)

The software is called Aura.

This is the real difference between staying small and absolutely going for it.

P.S. In 48 hours im running the Content to Clients workshop.

I'll show you exactly how to sign your next 10 clients in 2026.

Sounds good? Sign up below.

Here’s exactly how we’re scaling to $1,000,000/mo in 2026:

1. Only hiring A-Players

We are ruthlessly refining our team to have the right people in the right seats.

2. Moving to 100% in-office

If you want to get shit done, do it in person.

3. Going all-in on paid media

Organic has a cap.

We’re going all in on paid marketing to scale.

4. Building a large sales team

The goal is to have 20–25 people in our sales team this year.

We teach sales, so we better have a top 1% sales team.

5. Split focus

We’re not only scaling Voics, but building Aura into the world’s first AI-driven sales platform.

(Public launch on the way)

6. Building a leadership team

I’m not doing it alone. I have a COO and Head of Education.

Scaling aggressively requires a plan.

Here it is.

You shouldn’t have to do more work to scale.

If you 3X your revenue, it shouldn’t feel like 3X the workload.

And most importantly…

If you want to 3X your business, you shouldn’t run into a sales bottleneck.

A sales bottleneck is simply this:

The inability to scale.

You can’t track your leads systematically.

You don’t know the status of your deals.

You don’t know what’s actually driving revenue.

And you find yourself bogged down in sales admin just to stay afloat.

(or doing no admin at all, which is even worse lol).

On February 6th, I’m running a LIVE event to help you fix your sales bottleneck once and for all.

I’ll show you the exact system we use to scale sales:

- Book more qualified calls

- Eliminate time-wasters from your pipeline

- Track your sales properly

- And actually know what to fix to grow

Whether your goal is:

six figures per year… or six figures per month.

Sounds fair?

You can register for the live event below.

If your business feels hard af right now, keep going.

Brighter days are on the way.

Here are some of the scars from chewing glass since 2020.

Keep going.

Aura launches publicly on February 6th🐕

Over the past year, we’ve been building the solution..

The solution to your scaling problem.
The solution to your revenue problem.
The solution to your sales problem.

Reserve your spot now: https://lnkd.in/d9fh5ZFB

We built this from the trenches.

Chewing glass on the front lines of online business, seeing exactly where sales breaks down as you scale.

With a high-performance sales team generating $500K+ per month.

And helping 500+ agency owners and coaches scale with a simple sales process.

On February 6th, I’ll be breaking down the inner workings of Aura:

- How to scale your revenue
- Without managing endless spreadsheets
- Without duct-taping tools together with sketchy Zapier flows

Aura is the only sales platform that is truly spreadsheet-less.

I’ll be showing you behind the scenes of:

- A real AI-driven sales pipeline
- Out-of-the-box performance analytics
- CIA-level tracking of every single lead

If you care about scaling, this is for you.

Reserve your spot now: https://lnkd.in/d9fh5ZFB

80% of content is totally worthless.

It’s the 20% that drive leads, sales, and revenue.

If you’re a serious business owner, you should be optimising for the 20%.

All broke creators optimise for the 80%.

As a result, they have large accounts and small bank accounts.

I don’t know about you…

But I want the opposite.

Here’s exactly how you do it.

1. The Simple Story Framework

People buy the story, not the product.

What’s your story?

2. The Tactical Training Toolkit

People buy authority.

Without authority, you just have fluffy content.

3. The Closing Content Playbook

You need to educate prospects to show up to the call ready.

Without these three core areas, you will never book consistent calls that actually scale your revenue.

Today I’m running a LIVE workshop with digital entrepreneurs breaking this down.

If signing clients sounds remotely interesting to you…

Click the link below.

Most content never actually makes money.

Not because it's bad...
But because it's kind of beige...

I flew to Australia to sit down with Laura Higgins.

She works with creatives and helps them scale doing it the right way.

Keeping a love for the art and craft of business.
And their love for their creative work. 

We went super deep on:

- Why scaling too early can destroy your reputation 

- The shift from “creative” to real CEO (how to step back)

- Why being magnetic means repelling people

- And how great businesses are built on clear opinions 

Laura broke down what actually grows a business in 2026.
Andddd what not to do...
To sound beige lol.

Here's what you need:

Leads. 
Conversion. 
Delivery.

And caring deeply about client results (most important right?)

The full conversation is live now on YouTube.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did 🇦🇺

Turn Sales Calls Into Signup Calls With This Content Framework

Most digital entrepreneurs are struggling to close consistently.

Sales calls feel awkward. Prospects hesitate. And momentum drops for no clear reason.

Not because your offer is bad. Not because you’re not good at what you do.

It’s because your content isn’t doing the heavy lifting before the call.

In this free 90-minute live workshop, I’ll break down the exact content framework we’ve installed across 500+ digital businesses to turn cold “sales calls” into confident signup calls.

You’ll learn how to:
 • Build trust before the call even happens
 • Use one simple story framework to warm up prospects
 • Create training content that proves competence in advance
 • Send the right content so calls are easier to close

You’ll leave with a clear, repeatable system to turn content into qualified sales calls—and clients.

You don’t run a coaching business.

You run a sales organisation that happens to coach people.

Most coaches think they’re in the “coaching” business.

The reality is you’re in the sales business.

Coaching is just what happens after the sale.

If you can’t book calls, nothing else matters.
If people don’t show up, nothing else matters.
If you can’t close, nothing else matters.

Here are the only numbers you need to measure:

- Calls booked
- Show rate
- Close rate
- Cash collected

That’s it.

At Voics, we book 200+ calls per month.

65% show rate.
30% close rate.

Because we don’t build on luck, we build an ecosystem.

Your offer determines your pipeline.

If it’s positioned as a painkiller, people want to talk.

Your content and sales process determine conversions.

If they’ve watched your origin story, seen your objection-handling videos, and know your values, they show up ready.

Most coaches obsess over coaching.

Top coaches obsess over acquisition.

You can use a software called Aura that tracks, measures, and analyses every step of your sales process.

If you want to build a $100M software company…

Ask someone who sold theirs for $180,000,000.

I sat down with Frank Greeff, who hasn’t just done it once…
He’s back in the arena building again.

In Sydney, we broke down the path of what it actually takes to scale:

1.⁠ ⁠Hiring A-Players
How to attract top-tier talent, what to look for in the first 30 days.

2.⁠ ⁠Scaling a Software Company
From early traction to scaling aggressively and leadership.

3.⁠ ⁠Building an Incredible Community
Why community is now one of the strongest growth levers in SaaS.

This was scars and lessons from someone who’s been through the full cycle and came out the other side.

You can watch the full conversation below.

If you want to make more money, follow a sales process.

When I tried to grow Voics in 2021, it was a total shit show.

I was jumping into DMs, sending cold outreach, hoping something would land.

Nothing did.

I had no way to track conversations.
No way to follow up properly.
No idea what was working or not.

Then I’d get on sales calls…

With no process.

No structure.

No way to turn those calls into clients consistently.

Before I knew it, I was way behind on acquisition and completely stuck.

This is the founder dilemma:

No process, no consistency, no results.

So you spin your wheels and wonder why scaling feels impossible.

Here’s what actually fixed it for me:

- Book calls and track every lead
- Review sales calls properly (not vibes)
- Measure the right analytics
- Follow up when leads are ready, not randomly

That’s it.

Nothing fancy.
Nothing crazy.

Just a sales system.

I created a FREE training to help you start a coaching business.

From absolute scratch.

This is a complete end-to-end guide.

Absolutely everything you need to get your first 10 clients.

If you’ve got a skill, this is how you turn it into a business.

If you run an agency, this is how you introduce coaching.

If you’re a true expert, this is how you get paid for that expertise.

Ready to get started?

Click the link below.

Ideometry

Connect with Ideometry, an agency that jump-starts your marketing, extends your brand, and builds full-scale campaign strategies that create engagement, generate leads, and drive sales.

Co-Owner

Marketers in Demand

B2B marketing for small, scrappy teams. Marketers in Demand is a collection of agencies including New North, Motion, and Spoke. We all work together to help marketing teams do more with less.

Co-Founder

New North

The B2B marketing agency that actually rolls up its sleeves. Content. Paid. ABM. Reporting. Get the right mix of services for your scrappy B2B tech marketing team.

Motion

Own the media. Own the market.™ Done-for-you video series and podcasts for small scrappy B2B marketing teams. We plan, create, and manage content you’re proud to share with customers.

Spoke

We turn your best recordings into your most profitable content. Transform recordings into high-quality blog posts, white papers, ebooks, dynamic videos, social images and more.

522 Productions

As the Co-Founder of 522 Productions I was accountable for all major functions of the business including Sales & Marketing, Operations, Finance, Legal and HR

Docs In Progress

Board Member, Treasurer

Oracle Corporation

Sr. Consultant

IBM Global Services

Consultant

PricewaterhouseCoopers

WHAT I DO: As the Co-Founder of Marketers in Demand, I help small marketing teams at B2B technology companies do more with less. Our holding company consists of three agencies: New North, Motion, and Spoke.  

At New North, we provide your company with a full marketing engine, connecting the dots between content creation, paid media, ABM, and reporting.

At Motion, we build your owned media program with video series and podcast production services.

And with Spoke, we turn your best conversations into high-quality blog posts, white papers, ebooks, dynamic videos, social images and more.

WHO I WORK WITH: I specialize in working with small marketing teams at B2B technology companies. These are teams of less than 4 or 5 people, often stretched thin and pulled in a million directions. They understand the value of a comprehensive marketing strategy but lack the time or resources to implement it effectively.

MY BACKGROUND: My early career in consulting at large firms like Oracle and IBM taught me the challenges of articulating the value of technology. To overcome these, I pursued an MBA in Marketing and launched a video production company, which I led to the Inc. 5000 list before selling my stake. Now, I'm leading the work at Marketers in Demand and help coordinate resources across all of our agencies. In 2024, I helped lead Marketers in Demand to the Inc. 5000 list as well.

CONTACT ME: Connect with me here on LinkedIn or send me an email at tristan.pelligrino@newnorth.com

Tristan Pelligrino

Most agencies are stuck building tools in spreadsheets. Over the holiday break, I stumbled onto something better.

As an agency owner, I've tried everything to build internal applications:

→ Quickbase
→ Bubble
→ Notion
→ WordPress plugins
→ ClickUp + Zapier + Google Sheets + Slack notifications + [insert whatever other tool]

I've also been talking with other agency owners facing the same problem: they want custom tools that match their business process but can't justify hiring developers.

So they end up with Frankenstein spreadsheets that break every quarter. A zap doesn't fire. An automation gets corrupted. Someone links to the wrong Google Sheet.

Or worse—they overextend by paying $50K+ for enterprise software that does 70% of what they need and 0% of what makes them unique.

For the last few months, I've been building in Cursor and deploying via Render with Supabase as the database. Then over the break, I picked up Claude Code.

The breakthrough wasn't just Claude Code (though it's impressive). It was the combination: Claude Code for backend logic + Lovable for frontend UI.

I have them working in tandem—using each to cross-check the other.

Here's what I've built so far with this stack:

→ Client reporting dashboards pulling from 6 different data sources
→ Content inspiration & trends agent that crawls reddit, twitter and specific websites
→ A private market snapshot tool for agency founders
→ An agency optionality blueprint

Claude Code handles the heavy lifting—data processing, business logic, integrations. Lovable makes it look professional and actually usable, with clean Google OAuth that works with Supabase out of the box.

Total cost: ~$350/month (Claude Max, Render, Supabase, Lovable).
Development time: Days, not months.
Maintenance: Minimal.

I'm not suggesting agencies become software companies.

But every agency has workflows too complex for spreadsheets and too specific for off-the-shelf tools. At this point, it's easier to build an application around your existing workflow than to change your business process.

This stack lets you build exactly what you need without hiring a dev team or waiting 18 months for vendor customizations.

The agencies winning on operations aren't using better spreadsheets. They're building tools designed for their exact processes.

Partner @ Aragon Holdings | Acquiring Founder-Led Agencies | 3x Inc. 5000 Entrepreneur | Co-Founder @ Marketers in Demand

Everyone's talking about AI making agencies "leaner." But I saw this thing called Jevons Paradox that states the opposite.

In the 1800s, an economist noticed something weird: when steam engines got more efficient at burning coal, coal consumption didn’t drop. It exploded.

Why? Because efficiency doesn’t just reduce cost. It unlocks demand that wasn’t possible before.

Most agency owners I talk to are thinking about AI backwards.

They’re asking: “How many people can I cut if AI handles X?”

Wrong question.

I believe this is a better question: “What couldn’t we do before that we can do now?”

Across our agencies, we’re not using AI to shrink. We’re using it to offer things that weren’t feasible 18 months ago:

→ Real-time customer portals so clients see exactly where their projects stand
→ Standardized meeting minutes delivered within hours, not days
→ Automatic logging of every paid media change and why it was made
→ On-demand status reporting instead of waiting for the monthly call
→ Automated leadership reports and account status reports (on-demand)

None of these cut headcount. 

Efficiency doesn’t shrink agencies. It expands what’s possible.

We have an entire roadmap of additional initiatives for '26.

The agencies that win in the next 3-5 years won’t be the ones who used AI to cut costs. They’ll be the ones who used it to serve clients in ways that weren’t economically viable before.

The constraint was never ambition. It was capacity.

That constraint is disappearing.

I'm launching a newsletter for agency owners who are tired of growth advice from people who've never signed a payroll check.

It's called The Aragon Holdings Newsletter. No catchy name. No separate brand. Simple.

Here's who it's for:

You run a marketing agency between $500K and $3M in revenue. You're founder-led. You're probably doing most things right but a few things are quietly breaking. You see a ton of opportunity, but feel the daily grind. And you're not sure if you should scale, hold, or start thinking about an exit.

I've spent the last 4+ years evaluating over 100 agencies and doing multiple deals. 

I also operate multiple agencies day-to-day.

That means I see both sides—what founders think matters and what actually moves the needle when it's time to grow, professionalize, or sell.

Every issue has four sections:

The Signal — One personal insight or experience that cuts through the noise
The Lever — A tactical framework you can use now
The Market Pulse — What I'm seeing across the agencies I run and evaluate
The Next Move — One action to consider this week

No fluff. No "10x your revenue" nonsense. Just what's actually working from someone in the space.

First issue comes out tomorrow morning.

I'm wide open for ideas, questions, etc. to incorporate in future issues. 

Link in comments to subscribe.

Agency owners hit the same wall around $1M in revenue.

You can't do both delivery AND growth anymore.

Up until this point, you've been wearing every hat. Managing client delivery, jumping on calls when projects go sideways, AND handling business development, strategic planning, and new client acquisition.

It worked when you had 3 clients and 5 team members.

It doesn't work when you have 12 clients and 15 team members.

Here's what I've seen happen as I’ve done several agency acquisitions:

The owners who try to keep doing both hit a ceiling. Hard.

→ They're constantly in reactive mode, firefighting delivery issues
→ Business development becomes sporadic—feast or famine cycles
→ Strategic initiatives get pushed to "next quarter" indefinitely
→ They become the bottleneck for every major decision
→ Growth stalls, margins compress, and stress levels explode

The agencies that break through make a choice.

Option 1: Focus on delivery and operations
Hire a Head of Business Development or fractional VP of Sales. Let's face it, agencies require biz dev, not just bursts of SEO or PPC initiatives. Your job then becomes systems, processes, team development, and ensuring quality delivery.

Option 2: Focus on business development and strategy
Promote or hire a Director of Operations. Your job becomes new business, strategic partnerships, market positioning, and high-level planning.

Either choice works. What doesn't work is trying to do both.

The more interviews I do with agency founders, the more I see the same pattern.

The constraint isn't time—it's focus.

Make the choice that plays to your strengths. Then build the other side of the business around people who excel where you don't.

The one weakness I see in almost every agency under $3M: They don’t know where their cash is going.

Most founders at this stage can tell you their revenue.
Some can tell you their profit margin.
Almost none can tell you their cash position 90 days from now.

And it’s the number that actually matters.

Revenue is a story.
Profit is an opinion.
Cash is a fact.

I’ve looked at over 100 agencies in the $500K–$3M range in the last few years. The pattern is consistent:

- No rolling cash flow forecast
- No clear picture of receivables timing
- No plan for what happens when a big client pays late—or leaves

Most agency owners fly blind and call it “gut instinct.”

Here’s why this kills agencies:

You can be profitable on paper and still miss payroll.

You can have your best revenue month ever and still not cover a tax bill you forgot was coming.

Cash flow issues don’t announce themselves. They compound quietly until you’re scrambling.

The fix isn’t complicated:

Build a 13-week rolling cash flow forecast. Update it weekly. Know exactly what’s coming in, what’s going out, and where the gaps are.

It takes an hour a week and removes 90% of the financial anxiety that keeps founders up at night.

If you can’t see 90 days ahead, you’re not running your agency. You’re just reacting to it.

I used to think agencies got stuck at $500K-$1M because of operational issues.

Better systems. Clearer processes. More disciplined project management.

After evaluating dozens of agencies in this range, I've changed my mind.

The real barrier isn't operational. It's psychological.

Every founder who's broken through to $2M+ has one thing in common: they increased their risk tolerance right when it felt most dangerous to do so.

The agencies that stay stuck? They optimize what's already working instead of betting on what could work.

They won't hire an ops leader before they "need" one. They stick to proven marketing channels instead of testing new ones. They avoid service lines that require upfront investment.

I get it. At $750K in revenue, you've built something real. Taking bigger risks feels like gambling with what you've already earned.

But here's what I've observed: the founders who make it past $1M don't wait for certainty. They get comfortable placing bigger bets with the information they have available.

The first time I did this myself? I was able to get my first agency on the Inc. 5000 by hiring a head of sales. Without that investment, I would have been stuck closing deals on my own at a max $1.25 - $1.5M per year.

It's not about reckless bets. It's the calculated ones.

What have you seen from other agency owners? How do you evaluate risks?

When it comes to agency strategic planning, I get into a lot of dialogue around EOS.

For those not familiar, EOS is the Entrepreneurial Operating System. It's a set of tools & frameworks that structure how you run a company.

But with agencies, it's not always clear WHEN to use EOS or WHY. 

I come across owners asking:

"When should we start using it?" 
"Is our agency too small?" 
"Should we wait until we hit $2M?"

Most consultants will tell you to wait. EOS is designed for companies with $2M+ revenue and 10-15+ team members. That's the conventional wisdom. 

Most will tell you it's too much infrastructure when you're small.

I ignored this logic completely.

9 years ago, when we were building Motion, I implemented EOS from day one. We were nowhere near $2M. We didn't have 15 people. Hell, we barely had a real business yet.

But here's what I learned: having any framework beats having no framework.

It's not about EOS being perfect for early-stage agencies. It's about consistency. When you're small, you make decisions reactively. You plan when you remember to plan. You set goals when things feel chaotic.

A framework forces rhythm. Quarterly planning happens every quarter, not when you feel like it. Annual planning actually happens annually. Long-term thinking gets time on the calendar instead of getting pushed aside by client fires.

EOS gave us structure when everything else was fluid. And honestly, the specific system mattered less than just picking one and sticking with it.

I see too many agency founders waiting for the "right time" to get organized. Meanwhile, they're burning cycles on inconsistent processes and wondering why growth feels so messy.

Anyone else implement systems way earlier than the experts recommended? Curious what worked and what felt like overkill.

P.S. - How did your 2026 strategic planning go?

Every agency I’ve evaluated for an acquisition is different.

Different service mix. Different client base. Different founder personality. Different reason they’re even considering a sale.

Early on, that used to overwhelm me.

I’d approach each deal like it was brand new. Custom analysis. Custom structure. Custom everything.

It was exhausting — and I missed things.

Here’s what changed:

• I stopped trying to make the process itself unique and started building a repeatable system around acquisitions.
• Standard intake questions.
• Consistent financial analysis framework.
• Clear criteria for what moves forward and what doesn’t.
• Methodology for crafting pro forma financials (and what variables drive "best case" and "worst case").
• Consistent deal summary to share with partners and investors.

Not because every agency is the same. They’re not.

But because having a process for the predictable stuff frees you up to focus on what actually matters — the unique aspects of each deal.

• What’s the founder’s real motivation?
• Where’s the hidden risk in this specific client mix?
• What team members are driving the agency forward—beyond what the founder is contributing?
• How does this agency fit into the broader hold co. vision?
• What’s the right structure for this particular situation (there are hundreds of different ways to get a deal done)?
  
Those are the questions that make or break a deal. 

And you can’t think clearly about them if you’re reinventing your spreadsheet every time.

If this type of stuff interests you and you're wondering how agency deals get done, I'll be writing more about it in a newsletter I'm launching. Hit me up and I'll add you to the list for the first issue.

I used to feel guilty every time I stepped away from client work to focus on operations.

Like I was abandoning the team. Like I was becoming one of those founders who gets disconnected from the real work.

I'd catch myself in spreadsheets or reviewing financials and think: "My team is grinding on deliverables while I'm over here playing with numbers."

That guilt really got to me with my first agency venture.

Here's what I figured out after acquiring several agencies and seeing this pattern over and over:

Founders who don't understand their operations, financials, and risk exposure aren't protecting their teams—they're putting them in danger.

→ You can't insulate your agency from market shifts if you don't know your numbers.
→ You can't make smart hiring decisions if you don't understand cash flow cycles.
→ You can't negotiate better deals or spot warning signs if you're not tracking the right metrics.

The founder who stays buried in client work feels noble. But when that agency hits a rough patch—and they all do—that same founder has no visibility into what's actually broken or how to fix it.

Meanwhile, the team is wondering why leadership seems reactive instead of strategic.

Stepping back from delivery isn't selling out. It's stepping up.

Anyone else struggle with this dynamic? I'm curious how other founders made that mental shift.

As an agency, growing your biggest clients sounds smart. Until it isn’t.

Agency consultants love the “expand existing accounts” playbook.

And honestly? They’re not wrong. Upsells are efficient. The trust is already there. The sales cycle is shorter.

But there’s a point where smart growth turns into dangerous concentration.

I’ve seen it happen:

A $4K/month client grows to $20K.
Then you do it again with another.
Now your top 2 clients are 40% of revenue.

On paper, you’ve grown.
In reality, you’ve created a fragile agency.

Here’s the rule I use: No single client should exceed 10% of revenue.

Past that threshold, you’re not growing—you’re playing with fire. 

Because when that big client leaves (and eventually, one will and it’ll probably be out of your control), you’re not just losing revenue. 

You’re battling cash flow issues. You’re facing layoffs. You’re losing institutional knowledge. You’re scrambling to backfill while morale craters.

The agency gurus & consultants pushing aggressive account expansion aren’t thinking about this. They’re optimizing for quick wins that look good in a 90-day engagement.

The better approach:

Upsell, yes. But set a ceiling.

When an account hits 10%, stop expanding and start diversifying.

Add new clients instead of new scope.

It’s slower. It’s less exciting. But it’s what builds an agency that isn’t one phone call away from a crisis.

With AI workflows, I see a lot of agencies trying to automate chaos.

Here's what I see when I evaluate agencies for acquisition:

Every client gets a "custom" strategy. Every deliverable is built from scratch. Every process is reinvented.

Agencies wear this as a badge of honor. "We're bespoke. We're consultative. We don't use templates."

But here's the reality: You can't scale chaos. And you definitely can't automate it.

The agencies that are actually winning with AI have done something first: they've normalized their data.

Take paid media planning. Most agencies create a unique plan for every client.

The better approach:

Break it into components. 

→ Audience definitions & segmentation (who's the audience and how do we break apart our approach)
→ Budget allocation (how do we prioritize creatives across platforms)
→ Channel selection (what's our plan for different channels, what's the priority)
→ Creative strategy (what's the messaging and mediums we're using to share with audiences)
→ Performance benchmarks (what are the historical metrics we're starting from)
→ Reporting processes (where's the data, how frequently is it curated/analyzed)

These elements, or variations of them, exist in every plan. The variables change, but the framework stays consistent.

Now you can build once and apply everywhere. This is what gives you higher quality and consistent production.

And this is what unlocks the ability to layer workflows on top.

But you can't jump into n8n if your data lives in 47 different formats across 23 different tools.

Standardization isn't the enemy of customization. It's what makes real customization feasible.

The agencies that figure this out first will have an operational advantage that's nearly impossible to catch.

Here's the rule to think about: Before you ask what AI can do for your agency, ask what your agency needs to standardize for AI.

Pretty standard take in the agency acquisition world:

“If the business largely depends on the founder, it’s not really sellable.”

I’ve said versions of this myself.

But it’s not the full picture. 

A founder-dependent agency isn’t worthless. It’s just valued differently.

Here’s the reframe:

If the founder IS the product (👉the relationships, the expertise, the sales engine), then the deal structure needs to reflect that.

That’s where acquihires and earn-outs come in.

Acquihire: You’re not buying the business. You’re buying the founder and their team. The “acquisition” is really a hiring event with extra steps. The value is the talent, not the entity.

Earn-out: The founder stays on for 1–3 years. A portion of the purchase price is tied to performance. The buyer gets continuity and reduced risk. The founder gets a path to exit while proving the business can transition.

Are these structures as clean as buying a fully systematized agency? No.

Is the multiple as high? Rarely.

Is there a ton of cash offered at close with no performance requirements? Typically not. 

But here’s what I’ve learned after 100+ evaluations of agencies:

Some of the best agencies I’ve seen are founder-dependent. The founder is highly skilled. The client relationships are deep. The work is exceptional.

They’re not unsellable. They just require a buyer who’s willing to structure around reality instead of waiting for a perfect asset that doesn’t exist.

If you’ve built something valuable but it still runs through you — that’s not a disqualifier.

It’s a conversation about deal structure and setting realistic expectations.

AI isn’t coming for agencies. It’s already here. 

The question is what you do about it.

I’ve been in a lot of conversations with agency founders trying to figure this out. 

Some are paralyzed. Some are moving fast. 

Most are somewhere in between — experimenting but unsure what’s actually working.

Here’s what I’m seeing from the agencies that are evolving well:

1. Start with operations, not delivery.

Before you overhaul how you serve clients, look at your internal workflows. Reporting. Research. First drafts. QA. There’s usually low-hanging fruit that saves hours without touching the client experience. Experiment internally before creating friction with clients.

2. Audit your services for AI leverage.

Not everything changes equally. Some of your offerings will be commoditized. Others will become more valuable because they require judgment, taste, or relationships AI can’t replace. Know which is which.

3. Protect your margin — don’t just pass savings to clients.

If AI lets you do something in 2 hours instead of 10, that’s not automatically a discount for the client. That’s margin. The agencies winning right now are capturing efficiency gains, not necessarily giving them away. Instead, invest the extra time to improve your service and offer more than before.

4. Upskill before you downsize.

The instinct is to cut headcount. But the better move might be training your team to work alongside AI — making them more leveraged instead of more replaceable. 

5. Talk to your clients before they talk to you.

Clients are wondering what AI means for what they’re paying you. They wonder how you're using AI to give them more value. Get ahead of it. Show them you’re evolving. Silence creates suspicion.

6. Revisit your pricing model.

Hourly billing is getting harder to justify. Retainers and value-based pricing make more sense when delivery gets faster. If you haven’t rethought pricing yet, now’s the time.

None of this is a complete playbook. It’s evolving too fast for that.

But standing still isn’t an option.

The agencies that figure this out will be more profitable and more valuable.

The ones that don’t will be wondering what happened.

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