Josh Tay's Linkedin Analytics

Last week I had consult sessions with 3 retention agencies struggling to break $1M. They all thought they had a lead gen problem. But really, they had a bigger operations problem. To be specific, a weak system. Because even if they had leads... They'd break down. Lose the clients. And be back in the exact same situation. Here were the common problems: 👉 No SOPs, or SOPs that are not followed Without SOPs, there is ambiguity. Leads to time wasted going back and forth. Which means increased cost of delivery and lower margins. 👉 Lack of standardisation of tasks Excessive customisation often leads to delayed timelines. Affects team capacity maximisation, increased cost of delivery, low client satisfaction. Because so much emphasis is placed on production... Team takes their eye off performance. Unpredictable client results, unpredictable costs, big red flag. 👉 No cycle schedules A cycle schedule allows you to know when to get: - briefs approved by - copy booked in by - designs completed by - revision requests handled by - implementation completed and scheduled by Otherwise you'll always be pushing campaigns back. This leads to a resource crunch. Subsequent months' deliverables are due and production dates clash. Team is overworked, mistakes increase, revisions increase, dissatisfaction all around. 👉 No team training When the team isn't trained properly, uncertainty is high. No one dares to make decisions, so the few A-players (or the founder) are forced to take control. They get stretched too thin and the agency goes nowhere. Task based videos, written process playbooks and live trainings must happen to overcome this. This goes for every functional department - strategy, creative, technical. 👉 No policies in place What happens if client has too many requests? What happens if problem keeps happening? What happens if approvals aren't given? What happens if offers aren't confirmed? What happens if performance dips for 2 consecutive weeks? What happens if team member is on extended leave? What happens if feedback is given by client? What happens if client isn't happy with deliverable? There needs to be a plan that everyone can reference. You want to have Batman's car, not the Flintstone's car, where you are always needed. If your agency is fundamentally weak, you'll crumble under pressure. Just like how you tell your clients to build their foundation, your agency needs your foundation too.

Weak bottom line is the #1 issue for majority of agencies but most execs don't understand the root cause. ❌ Insufficient sales ❌ High cost ✅ No department KPIs __ People on LinkedIn put strategy and playbooks on a pedestal. But agency growth is not so much dependent on day to day. Your agency is a company after all. 1. Not even having departments - Only hire non-billable staff after $75k MRR - But doesn't mean you can't outsource or have double roles internally - You need an engine for every function of your business 2. Not having KPIs - No KPIs on a dashboard = nothing gets done - The daily whirlwind wins again = growth is "by the way" - Targets and estimates are required to forecast and scale unit economics 3. Misaligned KPIs with business results - Miro board giveaways on linkedin grow your following, but are you booking calls? - Nothing wrong with them, you just need a follow up system - Marketing is accountable for pipeline gen and new client efficiency - Other teams' northstars pegged to Profit Per Employee, and subsets Your agency's growth is determined by your department KPIs. Not how much revenue magically appears every month 🙂 Once a founder and exec team truly understand this, everything changes. Until then, hustle hard.

Every function in your agency needs its own dashboard. - Marketing - Sales - Operations - productivity, client satisfaction - Finance - Account performance Each should have its own manager. And each manager has KPIs that gets tracked every week, month and quarter. “Our biggest priority is XXXX right now, I need to focus my attention there”. Yes you’re right. You need to prioritise. But that doesn’t mean you let everything else slide. I get it though. You’re a small team. If you’re the founder, you’re likely doing most of it. Automation’s super helpful here. Make.com’s a great tool to pull fields from platforms back to your main dashboard (clickup, in our case) Eg. Marketing  GA4 > marketing space within CU Eg. Ops Hubstaff, CU, Pandadoc > ops space within CU Within each dashboard, there should be: - Week - Month - Actual - Target - Met/Missed Not tracking this is one of the biggest reasons why most agencies stagnate for years. I would recommend every agency to start with the ops dashboard first if you’re struggling to find time. - Scope creep - Team inefficiency - Excessive revisions - Delayed project timelines - Unnecessary customisations These are some of the biggest factors of low profitability, team overload, and confusion (internal and external). You need these numbers in your dashboards to give you estimates. Estimates give you resourcing insights. Resourcing insights allow you to forecast. Forecasting enables better decisions. Better decisions lead to a stronger agency. Get your priorities right. It’s never too late to start building your dashboard.

It's not about tracking utilisation or employee efficiency rates. What's important is what you can do with it. 1. Measurement Is about knowing where to streamline your processes. 2. Efficiency With optimised ops, you have a team that can take on more. 3. Investments More clients, more output, with same resources, means more surplus cash. So you can hire smarter people, create new products etc To make even more money. 4. Effectiveness Better capabilities garners trust of bigger and/more brands who're willing to pay. 5. Growth Leading to more growth potential and more data available to analyse. And determine your next set of priorities ----- This is the same cycle every agency goes through. Regardless of how big they are and what services they provide. I'm not saying start tracking 60+ KPIs all at once. 9/10 agencies we speak to face similar problems. - overcomplication - lack of documentation - too much customisations So look at your dashboards (I posted on this a few days ago, you can go check it out again), start working on streamlining or systemising.

Scaling your agency ≠ adding new clients It's about being more efficient SO THAT you're ready to handle more clients. The definition requires you to be able to do more, without adding extra resources. That means better: Acquisition - Packages for retainers - Client qualification processes - Profit maximizer offers/services Delivery - Turnaround time - Zero-revision deliverables - Ability to handle more clients per team Retention - Churn prevention/recovery processes - Upsell opportunities Everything in ops comes down to these. And they all have a direct impact on finance. Sales and marketing are levers to fill operational capacities, to realise monies. HR exists to support the requirements of the operations. Agency scaling starts with operations at its core. It's your current biggest cost centre and bottleneck at the same time. Later on we can discuss the other departments.

The reason most retention agencies are stuck with small clients that can't pay: Their team is half-baked. But there's a deeper reason why that is: - lack of strategy/design capability - you don't have funds to hire quality talent - you don't have sales because you didn't invest in it I hear it all the time. "Talent quality is poor" "Brands these days don't want to pay" You know who doesn't have this problem? Agencies with good marketing and branding. We have a waitlist of candidates who want to join us everyday. We have a waitlist of prospects waiting for our start dates. One day, we sat down and did a root cause analysis. And realised all problems start because we don't have enough money. Why do we not have enough money? Then went upstream. No one really sees how problematic this is because they're too consumed by the whirlwind of delivery. HR issues, sales calls, pitch decks, client complaints, bla bla bla Those will be there every single day. But you can have that handled by someone else. If only you had someone to do that huh. If only you had funds to hire someone for that so you can focus on building the business huh. My point exactly.

It boggles my mind how many agencies are throwing out lead magnets. With literally no plan after it. Are you chasing likes? Are you trying to gain followers? Are you doing this because everyone else is? 3 email agency owners I've spoken to in the past week had nothing. The idea of getting calls booked is nice. But if you have no marketing system, it's literally just hope. This is one tiny part of the larger marketing engine that needs to be built. If you have no funnel... Start there instead of wasting time on lead magnets. If you want to tell people to "build your back-end", "fix your leaky bucket" bla bla bla, start with your own.

Most retention agencies stuck at 30-50k MRR have one common problem. They have a weak pipeline. Your pipeline can be split into two: 1. volume 2. value 1. Volume - how many leads - how often do they come in - how many get on calls - how many reach proposal stage - how many get audits and close 2. Value - average contract size - cost per lead, call, proposal, client - further split by channel (referral,inbound,outbound) For growing agencies, cash flow is DO OR DIE. A couple of bad months could determine whether your agency shuts down or you have to borrow money to finance your company. I've been there before. I've struggled too. And I swore never to allow that to happen at NLE. So when we made the decision to go all in on sales and marketing, life got better. Here’s what we're currently doing: Marketing  - SEO (pages, blogs) - Organic LinkedIn - Organic Twitter - Organic YouTube - Podcast appearances - Features on educational sites - Weekly newsletter - Coming soon, paid social - Coming soon, Tiktok There's an entire system for this content marketing waterfall. Sales - Cold outbound email - Dedicated hunters - Agency partnerships - Tech partnerships - LinkedIn DM follow ups - Dedicated setters and closers - Strategists supporting with audits - Productised services This was how we stabilised sales and improved branding. Our pipeline velocity increased 20%+ since we doubled down. All this started with a scalable sales ops system. No operating system = nothing moves Stop hoping for sales. Start building for it.

We gave each team their own P&L and churn tracker. Here's what happened: - 20% "extra capacity" unlocked - Margin increased by 11% - Quarterly churn reduced by 16% - Team morale improved, trying to hit new targets Managing the agency became so much easier when we built it like Lego pieces. Each team is now its own mini-agency. This allows us to: - see pod margins more clearly - have better visibility into team efficiency - have high level view on capacity - when to see more/less For the longest time, agencies have struggled with executing and maintaining team and agency KPIs. Too many sheets and frameworks that don't translate to $$$. When people see their contributions, they see the truth – good or bad. P.S. We'll be releasing some of these new frameworks and trackers in our Vault All Access program soon

The revenue goals you set earlier this year? What were they based on? - 10-15% increment from last year? - Number of clients you want to manage? - Number of team members you want to have? - Increased costs from pay raises + profit margin? - A nice stretch goal, according to "SMART" framework? - Best month last year, rounded up to a nice whole number? Setting attainable revenue goals requires accurate forecasting. Forecasting requires having estimates before making any decision. Accurate estimates require you to actually track things. Tracking comes from some form of data reported in a dashboard. I was there. Winging everything. Thinking I had things under control. But honestly, I was just living in denial. The agency I was managing was as weak as a paper house. One tiny deviation would destabilise everything and the agency would burn down. - team member going on long leave - team member quitting - major client churning - pipeline drying up for 2-3 months - project being a little more complicated than expected - etc Really though, we were just banking on hope. No matter what plan we put in place, it wouldn't work. Because there was ZERO data we were basing plans on. If you'd never implement a strategy for a client without data, why do you do it for your own business? That's how I came up with this. Enjoy.

How Nespresso reduces risk when launching new products. In my subscription, they threw in a sleeve of 7. "Blind Taste Test" And I get to rank my favourites. Which could become additions to the product line. Why this is brilliant: - Gets preference from actual buyers They don't care about gen pop. What matters is the opinion of people who drink often. - Invokes principle of consistency If I said I liked it, I would want to buy it when they launch - Product usage advisory Maximises product value to ensure customers are making the most informed decisions - Increases brand affinity Makes customers feel like a part of the decision making process - Gauges market demand By recording response volume and proportion of votes, you can create bundles accordingly I effin love Nespresso

The biggest reason your team isn't "working hard" is because they aren't compensated for the good work. "I have no budget" isn't an excuse. Expecting more with the same salary is called exploitation. To manage this, you have to align incentives with pod success. Here's how to do that: 1. Set a revenue target Based on pod overheads + averaged non-pod overheads + agency margins Everything else is bonus upside. 2. Determine your incentive splits The agency takes a % first Remaining is split between strategists, specialists, copywriters, designers in varying proportions. 3. Assign accounts This way, pods become their own mini businesses. There's increased ownership, driving better results. And more familiarity, driving more efficient work. 4. Create reporting structure Train your team (or at least your pod leader) on super basic agency finances Ensure regular, transparent reporting - Monthly client billing - Total time tracked per client - Easy bonus structure calculator How do you currently incentivise your team?

Almost every new hire says we have the best onboarding they’ve seen. And the best roadmap to full productivity. Here’s our 4 step process: When someone new joins your team, they struggle with: - Complexity - Uncertainty - Ambiguity From processes (or lack thereof) From expectations of the role, performance etc From culture and management style Lack of a system either doesn’t give them the right foundation Or creates anxiety that causes premature churn. So we have 4 steps. 1. I do you watch Video walkthroughs during onboarding showing how to execute various tasks 2. Do it together Live one on one between team member and team lead on actual account (simple). Then homework to repeat for another account 3. You do I help Team member does it on their own. But submits every task to team lead for review and comments/provide feedback Once team member is ready to go on their own… 4. You do I cheer Team member has full ownership of account. Team lead pokes holes/challenges every now and then to further expand their perspectives/suggest better ways to do things if there are. And we have ongoing weekly/bi-weekly training all year round to ensure they’re growing. Plus a library of 20+ courses they can study at their own pace. We also have a fixed: - 7 day management check-in - 30 day management check-in - Weekly respective team stand ups for project updates - Weekly company all-hands for culture building - 60-day 1-on-1s that I personally conduct - Quarterly appraisals To ensure everyone has the structure they need From Recruitment > Onboarding > Training & Development > Performance Improvement Programmes > Offboarding, we have a system for everything. Because the team is the agency’s biggest asset. The team is #1 for me. How are you managing your team differently?

Agency owners still doing client work are doing their entire company a disservice. - "But I like to get my hands dirty" - "But my team is not experienced enough" - "But my clients appreciate the personal touch" When you are so in love with your craft... When you don't invest in training your team... When you're too afraid of letting go of control... Is the time you disrespect every other aspect of your business. As long as you remain in the line doing fulfilment, you will always be the bottleneck. Your job is to grow your agency. Right now you're holding everyone back. Do your job to groom your people, delegate, and work on high-leverage tasks that only you can do as the founder/CEO/leader. Otherwise your team will never learn. You too, will never learn to grow the agency properly. > Install a system for delivery > Follow the system for operations > Build a system for hiring and managing > Learn a system for consistent sales and marketing > Track your dashboard of financial and corporate KPIs A self-sustaining business runs on systems. Without systems to follow, you are the system, which is the biggest risk to your clients, your team and your future.

There is gross misunderstanding of resourcing in email agencies. And it stems from: 1️⃣ Unclear documentation of what needs to get done in each stage 2️⃣ Unclear instructions of how to get each task completed 3️⃣ Unclear estimates of how long each task takes 4️⃣ Unclear capacity limit for each individual I call this the ⬛️ "Black Box of Death" ⬛️ Because of a black box within each function, within a larger production black box... There are often insane inefficiencies. ❌ Too many variables due to poor (or lack of) productisation. ❌ Too much time wasted in back and forth comms internally and externally because there's no proper system of GETTING and RELAYING information. ❌ Too many points where human error can occur due to distraction, miscommunication, lack of knowledge, lack of ownership. The only way to solve this is DOCUMENTATION. - Responsibilities of each person - Macro playbook in a knowledge base - Handover from team member to team member - Micro description of each task's requirements - Subtasks with estimated time to complete - Written and video explainers of how to complete each task - Statuses of progress/review/approval/reviews - What to do in different scenarios available in a knowledge base - Time tracking on each task for each project for each person Only then, can you remove the veil on production. This will allow you to anticipate how to assign team members and timelines. Significantly reducing: - time of production - chances of errors - time spent in limbo, figuring out what needs to be done Consequentially increasing: - output per day - profitability per employee - client satisfaction - confidence of team in executing their work, increasing morale This black box also applies to other functions of your agency. > Lead generation > Closing a prospect > Hiring a new employee > Bookkeeping and cash flow reporting Wherever there is an input and output, there's a black box that requires process documentation. This black box has the power to cause your agency to implode. Get serious about your processes.

Most email agencies are commodities. Until you develop a TRULY position, you will remain that way. You have the best designs? Commodity. You can increase Klaviyo revenue from 10-35%? Commodity. You improve repurchase rates? Commodity. Unfortunately, all these are not any different from what any other agency can claim. This is the reason you don't land big clients. This is the reason your own client retention is low. This is the reason prospects aren't willing to pay more. Are you the person your clients turn to for help, or to get things done? If it's the latter, you're a commodity. Over the years personally working with over 120+ clients, I realised the ONLY way to move up the "trust rungs" is strategy. Now I can confidently say our team knows, executes and delivers on another level. How good your team is, will determine how big your agency grows. Better strategy equals: - higher client retention rate - consistent service delivery - bigger impact on clients' financials - better case studies - referral partners trust you more - attract higher quality talent - differentiation in a low barrier to entry marketplace All that's left is for you to train your team. That's where you bring me in. I've got two slots that just opened. If you're keen, drop me a DM.

These days, I spend 90% of my time on revenue ops. When people think operations, they think delivery. But every other department has operations too. - marketing ops - sales ops - hr ops - finance ops Offers, funnels, content, outbound, sales decks. Recruiting, training, performance tracking, culture, leadership. SOPs, client retention, pod revenue targets, bonus payouts, employee profitability. Each and every on of these has a direct or indirect correlation of impact on the other. Agency growth is insanely daunting. Yet so exciting. It's really like a jigsaw puzzle. I see the picture in my head already. Just the pieces that need to be created from scratch, then put together with other pieces. No advice in today's post. Just sharing my excitement for the future.

Total revenue in this image: ~$87k I think it's fair to say our designs are pretty dope. And they convert quite well. The team never fails to blow my mind in every production batch 🤯 If you're an email designer and think you can top some of these, shoot me a DM. We want you.

Even with designs like these, the team is still hitting our desired margins. How do we do it? - Daily capacities - Design library systems - Using AI to increase output - Clear briefs and pre-planned sections Happy team, happy clients, happy agency.

Stop hiring more people! You don’t always need a bigger team to grow. Often, your team is capable of more. To do this; you need: > spaced out work (based on workload) > fully utilised workdays (based on estimates) > understanding of individual staff’s capacity We made the mistake of over-hiring. It just resulted in lower margins. A workload dashboard is immensely valuable. This is a real-time view. And you’ll realise you could handle 2-3 more clients per pod without hiring extra.