Are You Thinking Like an Agency Owner… or a Business Owner?

And why the difference is quietly holding so many agencies back.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been speaking with groups of agency founders and leaders: smart people, ambitious people, people with years of experience under their belts.

And yet, again and again, the same frustration keeps surfacing: the way they make decisions is driven almost entirely by the identity of being an “agency owner,” rather than the discipline of being a business owner.

At first glance, that difference feels subtle.

In practice, it’s huge.

The Agency-Owner Mindset Trap

Many founders start with a craft: SEO, PPC, design, dev, content, social, whatever it may be. They set up an agency, grow it from the kitchen table to a real office, hire a handful of people, and suddenly they find themselves running a company.

But they still think like practitioners.

“If I started as an SEO, then SEO is what we do.”

“If I’m technically brilliant at something, then that is the thing the agency exists to deliver.”

“If this is the service I know, then this is the service we must continue selling.”

It’s the classic hammer-and-nail problem: if your only tool is SEO, every client problem looks like an SEO brief.

And in that mindset, everything else disappears:

• What clients actually want

• How the market is shifting

• How competitors are evolving

• The bigger economic picture

• The possibility that the category itself has changed.

Founders cling to the identity of “I run an agency,” as if the job is to continue being the expert they once were, rather than becoming the leader the business now needs.

The Market Doesn’t Care About Your Origin Story

A service that was once fashionable might now be saturated, commoditised, or simply slipping down the priority list.

Still, many agencies cling on.

Clients evolve.

Budgets evolve.

Buying behaviours evolve.

Whole categories evolve.

But the agency’s positioning stays frozen in time.

This doesn’t mean abandoning your principles.

A vegetarian restaurant doesn’t need to start serving steak.

But if the world wants you open until 11pm instead of 9pm?

If customers keep asking for takeaway or events catering?

If the market is giving you loud, repeated signals?

Then rigidly doing “what you’ve always done” is no longer a principle. It’s just bad business.

Listening to the market is not selling out.

It’s the job.

Agency Owner vs Business Owner vs Shareholder

So let’s make the distinction clear.

Agency Owner Thinking

“I run an agency. This is what we do. This is the service I know. My job is to make that service great.”

Business Owner Thinking

“What does the market need? Where is demand shifting? How do we adapt our offer, operations, pricing, and positioning so we stay relevant, differentiated, and profitable?”

Shareholder Thinking

“How do we increase enterprise value, profitability, stability, scalability, predictability, year on year?”

Most agency owners began as technicians, not entrepreneurs.

Most never planned to become CEOs.

Most didn’t wake up thinking, “I want to run a 20-person P&L.”

It just… happened.

And because of that, many founders are still wearing the wrong hat.

The Real Challenge: Updating Your Identity

The hardest part of all of this isn’t market insight or product innovation or competitive analysis (though these matter enormously).

The hardest part is identity renovation:

• Moving from craftsperson → leader

• Moving from service provider → business owner

• Moving from agency operator → shareholder.

Too many agencies stall not because they lack capability, but because the founder is still making decisions through the lens of the past, not the demands of the present.

If the marketplace is calling for something different…

If your clients are asking for something you’re not currently offering…

If your competitors are evolving faster than you are…

Then staying still isn’t safe.

It’s the risk.

A Final Thought

If you recognise yourself in any of this, you’re not alone. Most founders are reluctant entrepreneurs who never consciously reshaped their identity as the business grew around them.

But the shift is essential.

Your clients expect modernity.

Your team expects leadership.

Your business expects evolution.

And none of that comes from thinking like “an agency owner.”

It comes from thinking like a business owner with a shareholder’s ambition.

Thanks for reading, and if this landed for you, it might be time to revisit the decisions you’re making… and the identity behind them.