When I started my own agency is 1995 I was about 30 and the perfect combination of arrogant and ignorant. “How hard could running an agency be? If you knocked it out of the park for your clients and delivered results, everything fell into place, right?” As you might imagine, that blissfully ignorant attitude got a very fast course correction. I learned very quickly that being an agency person and running an agency were two very different things and I’d better learn how to run a business if I wanted to survive.
One of the truths that quickly became apparent was that whether you are a one-man-band or have 500 employees, the numbers matter. Most of you are probably tracking the basics like gross billings and hopefully AGI. I’ve previously talked about the AGI ratios and how that money should be divided amongst your people expenses, overhead and profit. If you’re not monitoring those — get on it and get on it now.
But those metrics are not enough. There are some other indicators that will tell you very quickly how healthy your agency is/isn’t and what you need to do to get back on track. An article I wrote on this topic for Hubspot’s blog back in 2016 is as relevant today as it was three years ago. In that article, I identified 5 overlooked metrics that every agency owner should be monitoring.
By the way, you shouldn’t be the only one watching these metrics. Your Account Execs should play a role too. At our AE boot camps, we help your AEs understand how they can help the agency get stronger, more profitable and understand what you need from them every day. We’ve got about 15 spots left in the boot camp in September. Grab a spot before they’re gone.
