You know that moment when you realise you’re not playing in the same league as the agencies you actually want to compete with?
I had that realisation when we kept getting overlooked for the brand projects we thought we were perfect for. We were good at what we did, but we weren’t being taken seriously by the potential clients that mattered.
In hindsight, we thought our business was perfectly capable of the work we were focused on getting, but our business was far from it.
So we made a decision to mature our business and that changed everything. We hired two senior brand designers to become the drivers of our creative studio and compete with the agencies I’d always aspired to work alongside.
But hiring those designers exposed every weakness in our business. Suddenly, we had serious overhead to justify and needed systems that could support a much more ambitious operation.
This team were able to introduce their knowledge and skills, the processes and systems that bigger agencies used to deliver increasing capacity and to maximise profitability, all while retaining the highest level of creative integrity.
I’m Connor McAuley. Over 13 years, I built my agency from zero to £220k months, before successfully exiting just a few years back. That hiring decision was the catalyst that forced us to mature from a scrappy startup into a proper business that eventually could be sold.
If you’re running an agency that’s outgrown the “winging it” phase, this story’s for you.
Stop winging it!
Before hiring those designers, we were comfortable. Making a very good income, but comfortable, both in terms of position in the market and the business we’d built. Our business was continuously growing by about 20% per year, and we had no issue keeping busy, but always felt like we were on the outside looking in when it came to the really exciting projects. Certainly, high-value brand and design projects were being given to other “more capable” agencies.
The problem was that we thought better creative output was all we needed. Get the talent, win the work, and job done. And if we had just done that, we’d probably have had some further success.
What we discovered was that having senior-level overhead meant we couldn’t afford to operate the way we had been. No more taking on any project that came through the door. No more hoping things would work out. No more making it up as we went along.
We realised we needed to mature the business before those designers even started. Otherwise, we’d have expensive talent sitting around with nothing meaningful to do until they got bored and left. And this changed how we thought about our business.
At this point, our revenue was around 500k per year and we had a decent profit margin. What we didn’t have was the luxury of sitting back and waiting. We decided to take action.
Building Systems That Actually Work
The first change we made was implementing Streamtime as our CRM and project management system. This took a few months to do properly, but considering the current position was running 100s of paper-based job dockets around our office, we knew this was a prudent move.
Implementing a CRM takes time to do right, but when done correctly, you start to see results almost immediately.
No more missed quotes or forgotten projects. All projects were monitored for time tracking and scope creep. Every enquiry, every deadline, every task was tracked within one system. We had total visibility into the inner workings of our business for the very first time.
Now many of you will be solopreneurs or in growing agencies. And the time of managing a CRM or the cost might seem like a duplication of work. But I promise if you take no other action after this video than implementing a CRM, you’ll come back later and thank me for prompting this.
Before Streamtime, we were juggling around 300 projects per month through emails and yellow sheets. At our peak after implementation, we were running 1000+ projects with 3-5000 individual tasks across our team. Tell me truthfully, could you remember all of this in your head? I know I couldn’t. Now think about your team. How much opportunity would be missed? The answer is a lot.
The numbers in our business tell the story: we went from £500k annually to £2.2 million over the six years following introduction. This single systematic change provided the infinite scalability our business needed for that level of growth. We could not have become a multi-million-pound service business without the CRM. It’s that simple.
Competing at a Different Level
With the new designers and proper systems in place, we introduced more designers and 2 new functions in the web and digital team. This wasn’t just about offering more services – it was about positioning ourselves as a full-service creative partner.
We started taking branding projects to an international level. Clients who previously wouldn’t have considered us suddenly saw us as equals to the agencies they’d been working with.
The transformation wasn’t just about capability – it was about confidence. It was about the change of systems, understanding and knowledge that we previously didn’t know. The truth is, these designers taught me what I didn’t know about branding. And that was pretty much everything. When you have the right team and the right systems, you pitch differently. You price differently. You operate differently. Your business grows, and so do you.
Now I’m respectful. You’re intelligent and you know your trade, but the person who thinks they know it all, knows less than they think. We are always learning and embracing this is the key.
Why Most Agencies Stay Stuck
Since exiting my agency, I’ve worked with 50+ agency owners, and I’ve learned as much from them as they have from me. But one incredible common trait is that most of us get trapped in our comfort zone. You’re making decent money, so they assume you’re doing well.
But decent isn’t scaling. Decent isn’t building something valuable. Decent certainly isn’t creating something you can sell or achieving the freedom you started the business to achieve.
The agencies that break through to the next level all have one thing in common – they get serious about the business side, not just the creative side.
They invest in proper guidance, whether that’s coaching, mentorship, or learning from others who’ve walked the path before them.
I can tell you with honesty that if I didn’t treat our business as anything but a high-performing agency, I wouldn’t be here now telling this story.
A New Reality
Once we started scaling properly, the challenges changed constantly. One day, it was sales capacity. The next day, it was team management. Then it was operational bottlenecks. And this cycled through and through.
At each revenue milestone, new problems emerged that we’d never faced before. Yesterday’s challenges were no longer, and we’d learned from them. The difference was that we now had frameworks and systems to address them systematically rather than reactively as we did before.
This is where most agency owners struggle. They try to figure out each new challenge alone, often making expensive mistakes that proper guidance could have prevented. Then, when they deal with it, there’s no documentation, no knowledge share, and when it inevitably happens again, the challenges are equal in terms of disruption in your business.
The Cost of Going It Alone
Because of this, I believe the most expensive mistake agency owners make is not putting the systems and processes in place in the early days of their journey.
I see agencies hitting £300k, £500k, even £800k in revenue, but they’re still operating like a £100k agency. Still managing projects through emails. Still hoping nothing falls through the cracks. Still having the founder involved in every single decision.
They’re still winging it.
The cost isn’t just inefficiency – it’s the ceiling it puts on your growth. You can’t scale chaos. At some point, the lack of systems becomes the bottleneck that prevents you from reaching the next level. In the worst-case scenario, it all comes crashing down around you at once, and you give up.
When you’re scaling an agency, every month of inefficiency costs you. Not just in immediate revenue, but in missed opportunities, team burnout, and market positioning.
I want you to think back to the last business challenge/disaster you faced. What if you documented and process-mapped what needed to happen the next time this occurred? Would you be able to manage this more efficiently? Could your team perform better because of this? Of course they would.
What Proper Business Guidance Looks Like
Real business coaching isn’t motivational speaking. It’s not being the hype man building you up between meetings. It’s practical problem-solving based on experience.
It has frameworks for qualification, pricing, team development, and operational efficiency. It’s understanding the predictable challenges at each stage of growth and having systems to address them.
Most importantly, it’s having someone who can spot your blind spots before they become expensive mistakes, and it’s someone who will hold you respectfully accountable to yourself.
In my experience working as a business coach to creative agency owners, the most successful ones are those who invest in learning from people who’ve built what they’re trying to build.
Your Path Forward
If you’re running an agency and feeling like you’re hitting a ceiling, it’s probably because you are. Not because of market conditions or competition, but because you’ve outgrown your current approach or the knowledge you have. Getting support is a strength that will support your agency further.
The question isn’t whether you need guidance – it’s whether you’re ready to invest in getting it.
I work with agency founders who are serious about scaling beyond the £200k mark. Not just growing revenue, but building businesses that can operate without them constantly firefighting.
If that sounds like where you want to be, I’d encourage you to get serious about business development. Whether that’s through coaching, my Selling Creative Services course, or learning from other successful agency owners.
The difference between agencies that plateau and agencies that scale is simple – the ones that scale don’t try to figure everything out alone.
I didn’t know what my agency was capable of until I put the plans in motion to achieve it. Your agency has potential beyond what you’re currently achieving.
The question is whether you’re ready to invest in unlocking it. If you want to discuss the opportunities to work with me, check out the discovery call over on https://moveatpace.com or check out my Selling Creative Services course at courses.moveatpace.com/selling-creative-services if you’re serious about systematic business growth.
Because the creative work is only half the equation.