Build a leadership team, commercial engine and culture that isn't dependent on you.
An inspiring group of agency founders supporting one another to grow. Led by an exited founder, backed by a network of experts and other exited founders, to help you put the building blocks of a great agency in place.
“After six months of great new business meetings but no briefs, we knew we had to try something new. Wish it hadn't taken us six months to work out what.”
There's a set of building blocks to growing a great agency.
Every agency I've seen go from a founder and a few freelancers to a business that runs without them has had to put the same blocks in place. When they aren't there yet, it looks like this:
- New business that stops the moment you're busy
- Projects, clients or pitches that can't be run without you
- Work priced so there's no margin left to invest in growth
- No sales forecast, so every hire is a gamble
- Clients who buy once and don't come back
- Too much to do and no way of deciding what matters this month
You know that these are a problem. It's just that there's a pitch on Thursday, a client who's gone quiet, someone about to hand in their notice and the cash to keep an eye on. So every week the business gets in the way, and when you do get some breathing space it's hard to know where to start.
That's what the building blocks are for. Not a roadmap but key pillars that you need to get in place so you can stop being the bottleneck.
The building blocks
Here are some examples of the building blocks. The group picks one or two a quarter, so everyone's working on a priority issue for them.
A clear vision and a plan to get there
How to set a direction the team will rally behind and a plan to get you where you want to be.
Example tools- Strategy day agenda
- Vision workshop template
- Team objectives framework
A focused and engaged leadership team
How to build your next layer, get them aligned, and put a succession plan in place.
Example tools- Responsibilities map
- Prioritisation tools
- EMI basics
A cut-through proposition
How to stand out in a crowded market and win the clients you want.
Example tools- Positioning statement
- Service map
- Competitor map template
Repeatable sales and marketing
How to create a steady flow of the right conversations and a way to turn them into briefs.
Example tools- Weighted pipeline
- First-meeting playbook
- Account planning template
Sound commercial and operational foundations
How to deliver profitable projects and forecast so you can hire with confidence.
Example tools- Project profitability tracker
- Revenue forecast
- Ops meeting templates
Talent and culture that creates great work
How to hire, grow and keep good people who produce work your clients come back for.
Example tools- Values and behaviours
- Hiring scorecard
- Progression framework
What you get.
Twelve founders in your corner
Founders who know what it's like, who support and push you.
- Together every month, alternating a ninety-minute call and a half day in person
- Paired with one founder, for the in-between conversations
- Held to what you said you'd do, by people you don't want to let down
- The ideas and energy that come from a room of eleven others building something
Deep dives with people who've done it
Every other month, one or two building blocks and a half day to get under the skin of them.
- Run with a specialist or exited founder who has solved that exact thing
- Former client-side buyers, off the record, when the block calls for it
- Me in the chair every session
A library that grows every quarter
Tools and templates that save you starting from a blank page.
- Added to every quarter with the outputs of the deep dives
- Plus the smaller things that come up along the way: a team workshop agenda, a hiring scorecard, a way of running a Monday meeting
- Use them as they are, or make them your own
Support with accountability and prioritisation
Help deciding what to work on, and people making sure you do it.
- An onboarding session with me before your first call, then regular 1:1s to work out what matters most right now and check in on it
- Project groups of three or four on the same block, when it helps to have others alongside you
- Prioritisation tools for when there's too much to do and no way of choosing
Benchmarks, twice a year
Find out whether your numbers are good, bad or normal.
- Revenue, margin, revenue per head and client mix, against eleven agencies you know
- Spot the gap worth working on next
- Track your progress from one benchmark to the next
The annual retreat
A day out to breathe. Reflect on the year past. Set goals for the year ahead.
Away from the business, with the whole group, you get to the things that never fit in a half day: what you want from the agency, what you want from the next five years, and whether the two line up.
It's the biggest chunk of time you'll give the group and the part of the year I put the most into. A place picked for the setting and the food, with time built in to walk and talk, and a long dinner at the end of it.
A quarter on new business.
New business is one of the fundamental blocks. Without cracking it and scaling it you'll never break through. It's a big topic, but here's what a quarter on it might look like.
New business comes up, again
Plenty of meetings, no briefs. Low win rate. A team that can't progress a sales conversation. We agree it's the thing to focus on, so it goes to the top of the list.
You each share more about the nuance of your experience and challenge
Where the leads come from, who's in the meetings, what gets asked, what happens afterwards, what's tracked. That shapes who we bring in and what the day covers.
Learn from those who have worked through this
One or two experts or exited founders deep dive on fixes to your specific challenges: what a first meeting is for, how you move a conversation towards a brief, what to write down after. A former client-side buyer tells you what she thought when agencies pitched her.
An agenda, a template, and a number
A first-meeting agenda. A weighted pipeline template, the same shape as the one we ran at Adaptive Lab. A number of new business conversations a week you've committed to in front of eleven people.
Landing it in your agency
You take the pipeline and the playbook back and put them to work. Your 1:1 with a peer, me when you need it, and your project group every fortnight keep it moving, and you report back on the next call.
Agency founders who want to grow.
Among Founders is for agency founders who want to build a business that's bigger than them, are hungry to learn, and are up for being challenged on how.
There's nothing wrong with a lifestyle business. This room is for people who want more than one. It isn't about an exit either. Build something good and the options come, whether you sell, keep going or step back.
James Haycock
I founded Adaptive Lab, a design and innovation studio, on a rickety desk and spent ten years building it into a £20M+ business, with a successful exit on the way.
Along the way I worked out, mostly by getting it wrong first, how to sell beyond myself, how to build a team and a culture that produced work clients came back for, and how to get through the months when payroll was touch and go. The thing I'm proudest of is the team and the culture. Deep friendships were built there, people still tell me it's where they learnt the most in their careers, and we went home on time.
After the sale I invested in and advised a handful of founder-led businesses and started BRiMM, a consumer brand. I hadn't planned to come back to agencies. Then a founder asked me to advise his, and I found that the things which had taken me years to learn were second nature to me and news to him. That's where this came from.
Straight answers before you apply.
How much time does it take?
About a day a month, all in. A ninety-minute call one month, a half day in person the next, the retreat once a year, plus your 1:1s and any project group you join. It isn't a day a month away from work. It's a day a month working on the most important thing you need to grow.
Is this a programme? How long does it run?
No. It's a standing group with no end date. A block takes about a quarter to put in, so give it a year at least. Most members will stay longer.
I've already got an advisor. How is this different?
Advisors are great. I had several during our journey and I'd recommend having at least one. Where this differs is you get more than one perspective on your challenge, and you get the tools, templates and frameworks to help solve it.
How do I know we'll work on the things that matter to me?
Because you choose them. Each quarter the group picks the building blocks from what people bring to the calls, and we take one or two so nobody's sat out. If yours isn't the group's pick that quarter, it doesn't wait: your 1:1s with me and your project group take it on.
Is it one founder per agency?
Yes. Seats are for founders, one per agency. If you've got co-founder(s), we'll talk about which of you it makes most sense for on the first call.
What if I miss a session?
It happens. Miss a call and your 1:1 and project group keep you in the loop. Miss a half day and you get the materials and a catch-up with me. Miss a lot and we should talk, because the group only works if people turn up.
What if there's a similar agency in the room?
Possibly there will be. Founders in similar spaces know each other and talk anyway. What makes it work is that whatever's said in the room stays there.
Do I need to be based in London?
No. The group is open to agencies anywhere in the UK. Half days and the retreat are likely to be close to London though.
What does it cost?
A monthly fee that covers everything: the calls, the half days, the retreat, the library and the network. Think of it in the same bracket as a good advisor. We'll go through the number on the first call.
Is what's said in the room confidential?
Always. What's said at the table, yours and everyone else's, stays there.
Twelve seats.
I'm putting the first group together now. It starts with a call, to check it's a fit both ways.