If your agency can’t run for 30 days without you, you don’t own a business. You own a job. And that job is worth significantly less than a business when it comes time to sell.
I know this because I lived it. For the first 10 years of running my agency in Belfast, I was the bottleneck for everything. Sales, creative review, client relationships, hiring decisions. Everything went through me. It was exhausting. And it was suppressing what the business was worth.
The Owner Extraction Method is the 90-day framework I developed after extracting myself from my own agency. I now use it with every coaching client. It works for agencies at any size, from 3-person studios to 40-person operations.
Why Owner Dependency Matters
This isn’t just about your quality of life. Although that matters too.
Owner dependency directly impacts your agency’s valuation. Buyers apply a multiplier to your profit to determine what the business is worth. A high level of owner dependency can reduce that multiplier by 1-2x. On a £200k profit business, that’s £200-400k wiped off the sale price.
Here’s the maths:
| Scenario | Adjusted EBITDA | Multiple | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owner-dependent agency | £200k | 3x | £600k |
| Same agency, owner extracted | £200k | 5x | £1,000,000 |
Same profit. Same revenue. £400k difference. Simply because the business can function without the founder.
Even if you never plan to sell, extraction gives you something equally valuable: freedom. Freedom to take a holiday without your phone buzzing. Freedom to focus on strategy instead of firefighting. Freedom to enjoy what you built instead of being trapped by it.
The Owner Dependency Test
Before you start the extraction process, honestly assess where you are. Rate each function:
Sales and Business Development
- I do all prospecting and lead generation
- I’m on every sales call
- I write or approve every proposal
- Clients expect to deal with me personally
Project Delivery
- I review every piece of creative work
- I make final decisions on all projects
- I handle client feedback and revisions
- Team escalates most problems to me
Client Relationships
- I’m the primary contact for key clients
- Clients call me directly for everything
- I handle all renewals and upsells
- Clients would leave if I left
Operations and Strategy
- I approve all spending decisions
- I handle hiring and firing
- Strategy lives in my head, not in documents
- The team can’t prioritise without me
If you ticked more than 8 of these 16 items, you have significant owner dependency. More than 12, and your agency essentially is you. That’s fixable. But it takes deliberate work.
The Delegation Ladder: 4 Levels
Extraction isn’t one step. It’s a progression. The Delegation Ladder shows the four levels of delegation, from total control to complete freedom.
Level 1: Do and Report
Your team member does the task and tells you what happened. You’re not doing it anymore, but you’re reviewing everything.
Example: Your designer creates the initial concepts and shows you before presenting to the client. You still approve, but you’re not doing the creative work.
Your role: Reviewer and approver.
Level 2: Do and Advise
Your team member does the task, makes a recommendation, and you confirm. They’re developing judgement. You’re providing guardrails.
Example: Your account manager handles the client feedback, recommends a response approach, and gets your nod before proceeding.
Your role: Advisor and safety net.
Level 3: Do and Inform
Your team member handles everything and informs you after the fact. You’re kept in the loop but not in the decision chain.
Example: Your project manager resolves a scope issue with a client, implements the solution, and mentions it in the weekly update. You don’t need to approve.
Your role: Informed observer.
Level 4: Do
Your team member owns it completely. You don’t need to know unless it’s exceptional. They have full authority and accountability.
Example: Your sales lead runs the entire pipeline, closes deals, and you see the results in the monthly numbers. You’re not involved in individual deals.
Your role: Not needed.
The goal is to move every function from Level 1 to Level 4 over time. Not all at once. Not overnight. Systematically.
The 90-Day Extraction Plan
Weeks 1-2: Audit and Prioritise
Objective: Understand exactly where you’re embedded.
Step 1: Time audit. For two weeks, track every task you do. Every email, every call, every decision. Use a simple spreadsheet or tool like Toggl. Don’t change your behaviour. Just observe.
Step 2: Categorise. Sort every task into one of four buckets:
| Bucket | Definition | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Only I can do this | Genuinely requires the founder (e.g., investor relations, strategic partnerships) | Keep. These are your real job. |
| I do this but shouldn’t | Someone else could do this with training (e.g., creative review, proposal writing) | Delegate. Priority 1. |
| I do this out of habit | You do it because you always have, not because you should (e.g., checking every email, attending every meeting) | Stop immediately. |
| I shouldn’t be doing this at all | Admin, low-value tasks, things that could be automated | Eliminate or automate. |
Most founders discover that 60-70% of their time falls into the bottom three categories. That’s your extraction opportunity.
Step 3: Prioritise. Pick the 3 tasks that consume the most time in the “I do this but shouldn’t” bucket. These become your first extraction targets.
Weeks 3-4: Document and Prepare
Objective: Create the documentation your team needs to take over.
For each of your 3 extraction targets:
-
Write the SOP. Document exactly how you do this task. Step by step. Include screenshots, templates, and examples. Write it for someone who has never done it before.
-
Define the standard. What does “good enough” look like? This is critical. Your team won’t do it exactly like you. They need to know what 80% quality looks like versus what’s unacceptable.
-
Identify the person. Who on your team is best positioned to take this over? If nobody exists, this tells you about your next hire.
-
Set the delegation level. Start at Level 1 (Do and Report). You’ll progress to Level 4 over the remaining weeks.
Weeks 5-6: Transfer at Level 1
Objective: Hand over the 3 tasks at Level 1 (Do and Report).**
Walk your team through each SOP. Let them do the work. Review everything they produce. Give feedback. Resist the urge to take it back.
This is the hardest part. You will see things done differently than how you’d do them. That’s okay. Remember: 80% of your quality at 100% of their capacity is better than 100% of your quality at 50% of your capacity.
At Kaizen, I struggled letting go at first. So I took baby steps. I set a rule: if any problem costs less than £50 to fix, fix it. No questions asked. No approval needed. It worked. The team started making decisions. I started trusting them. We expanded from there.
Weeks 7-8: Progress to Level 2-3
Objective: Move from reviewing everything to advising on exceptions.**
Your team now has 4-6 weeks of practice. They understand the standard. They’re getting consistent.
Move to Level 2: they recommend, you confirm. Then push to Level 3: they decide, you’re informed.
The key question at this stage: “What’s the worst that happens if they get it wrong?” For most tasks, the answer is: something small gets fixed, a client gets a slightly different experience, or a proposal isn’t exactly how you’d write it. None of these are catastrophic.
Weeks 9-10: Identify the Next 3
Objective: Repeat the process with your next 3 highest-impact tasks.**
By now, your first 3 tasks are running at Level 2 or 3. Your team is growing into the responsibility. You have 10-15 hours per week back.
Pick your next 3 tasks from the audit. Run the same process: document, prepare, transfer at Level 1, progress through the levels.
Weeks 11-12: The Holiday Test
Objective: Test the system with real absence.**
Take a week off. Properly off. No email. No Slack. No “just checking in.”
Tell your team: “I’m unreachable for 7 days. Here’s what to do if something genuinely critical happens [define critical]. Everything else, handle it.”
When you come back, debrief:
- What broke?
- What slowed down?
- What ran perfectly fine?
Fix the gaps. The things that broke tell you where to focus next. The things that ran fine validate the extraction.
The 80% Rule
This principle underpins the entire method: 80% of your standard, delivered consistently by your team, is worth more than 100% of your standard delivered only when you’re available.
Perfectionism is the enemy of extraction. If you insist that everything meets your personal standard, you’ll never let go. And you’ll never build a business that has value beyond your labour.
Your team won’t do it exactly like you. That’s not failure. It’s delegation. The client still gets a great result. The business still operates. And you get your life back.
Common Resistance Points (And How to Overcome Them)
“No one can do it like I can”
Probably true for now. That’s because you’ve been doing it for 10+ years and they haven’t had the chance to develop. Give them the chance. Invest in training. Accept the learning curve. In 6 months, they’ll be better than you expected.
”Clients want to talk to me”
They want their problem solved. Introduce your team gradually. Start with junior interactions, then lead the meeting but let them present, then let them lead while you observe, then step away entirely. Clients adjust faster than you think.
”I don’t have anyone capable”
Then your next hire should be someone who can take over your highest-value delegation target. Hire for capability, not just capacity. A £60k hire that frees £200k of founder capacity is a bargain.
”I can’t afford a senior hire”
Can you afford being the bottleneck? Calculate the cost of your constraint. Every hour you spend on a £30/hour task is an hour you can’t spend on strategy, sales, or business development worth £300+/hour.
”I enjoy the work”
Great. Do the work you enjoy. But make sure you don’t HAVE to do it. There’s a difference between choosing to review creative work because you love it, and the business requiring you to review every piece because no one else can. Choice is the goal.
The Impact on Valuation
Let me make this concrete.
I worked with two agency owners in the same year. Similar revenue (around £800k). Similar margins. Similar client bases.
Owner A had fully extracted from operations. Management team in place. Sales running without her. Projects delivered without her review. She could disappear for a month and nothing would change.
Owner B was still doing 40% of delivery work, attending every sales call, and approving every proposal. His team escalated everything to him.
Owner A’s agency was valued at 5.5x EBITDA. Owner B’s was valued at 3x. Same profit. Same revenue. A £400k+ difference in what a buyer would pay.
That’s what extraction is worth. Not in theory. In actual pounds.
The Post-Extraction Founder Role
Once you’ve extracted from operations, what do you actually do?
Your real job becomes:
- Setting strategic direction (where are we going?)
- Building key relationships (partnerships, high-value clients)
- Developing your team (coaching, mentoring, culture)
- Monitoring performance (dashboards, not doing the work)
- Planning for the future (growth, exit, whatever you choose)
This is the role a buyer wants to see. A founder focused on strategy, not stuck in delivery. It’s also the role most founders actually enjoy once they get there.
At Kaizen, my job eventually became filling my team’s days through sales and setting the direction. The team ran everything else. I left Kaizen and Kaizen’s doing brilliant things. It was my baby for the longest time. We always think we’re the oracle. But a well-built business with a good team can thrive without the founder.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I remove myself from my business?
Start with a 2-week time audit to understand where you’re embedded. Categorise every task into four buckets: only I can do this, I do this but shouldn’t, I do this out of habit, and I shouldn’t be doing this at all. Then systematically delegate using the Delegation Ladder, starting with the highest-impact tasks first.
How long does owner extraction take?
The initial extraction takes 90 days using this framework. That covers your first 6 high-impact tasks. Full extraction across all functions typically takes 6-12 months. The timeline depends on your team’s capability and your willingness to let go.
Will my agency suffer if I step back?
Short-term, there may be a quality dip as your team adjusts. Long-term, the agency gets stronger. Your team develops capability, takes ownership, and often improves processes in ways you wouldn’t have thought of. The 80% Rule applies: consistent delivery at 80% of your standard beats inconsistent delivery dependent on your availability.
What if I don’t have a team to delegate to?
Then your first extraction step is hiring. Start with the role that would free the most of your time. Usually that’s a project manager or an account manager who can own client communication and delivery coordination. One good hire can unlock 15-20 hours of your week.
Does owner extraction increase my agency’s valuation?
Yes, significantly. Owner dependency is one of the 7 key valuation drivers. Reducing it from high to low can increase your multiple by 1-2x. On a £200k profit agency, that’s £200-400k in additional valuation. It’s the highest-leverage improvement most agencies can make.
Start the Extraction
Take the free Agency Valuation to see how owner dependency is affecting your agency’s score. It specifically measures whether your business can operate without you.
If you’re ready for structured support through the extraction process, my Scale coaching programme includes 1:1 accountability on exactly this framework. We work through the Delegation Ladder together, week by week, with someone who’s been through it and come out the other side.
For agencies preparing for a specific exit timeline, Exit Advisory includes owner extraction as a core component of the exit preparation programme.
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