Job descriptions don’t feel strategic.

They feel like admin.
HR.
Something you knock out quickly so you can get back to “real work”.

Which is exactly why they quietly break so many agencies.

If your business feels harder than it should…
If decisions keep landing on your desk…
If people aren’t taking ownership the way you hoped they would…

This is probably where things started to wobble.

When an agency owner tells us they need “more sales,” what they usually mean is this:

They’re waiting.

Waiting for a referral.
Waiting for inbound.
Waiting for the market to turn.
Waiting for someone else to make the first move.

And while that might work for a while, it creates a dangerous dynamic. No pressure on the business. No strain on delivery. No reason to evolve systems, pricing, or positioning - because nothing is really being tested.

So the agency stays comfortable. And stuck.

Here’s a brutal truth: if your agency relies on hustle, heroics, or hope, you’re not building a business — you’re running a high-stakes treadmill.

You might be winning clients, growing revenue, or even collecting awards. But chances are, you don’t have Power.

Not the real, structural, compounding kind. The kind that makes competitors irrelevant, clients stickier, and margins fatter. The kind that makes your business scalable, saleable, and strategic.

So what is “Power,” and why does it matter?

Most Agency Owners Are Still Guessing

Let’s be honest. Most agency owners don’t run their business — they run around it.

Tweaking proposals, jumping on delivery calls, fixing culture issues, updating website copy at midnight. No consistency. No rhythm. No system.

Every hire is a gamble. Every client is a new rollercoaster. Every month feels like starting from zero.

That’s scaling chaos.

You’re heading into 2026 with big plans:

• New revenue targets

• Product launches

• Maybe a rebrand or new service line

• A few dozen OKRs

• And that elusive “strategic pivot”

You’re refuelled, optimistic, ready to hit the ground running.

And if you’re like most agency leaders, you’re about to ruin it.

Not because ambition is bad - we love ambition. But because trying to do too much, too soon is a fast track to burnout and stalled growth.

Agencies fall into a classic trap all the time: hiring one person to do two jobs - and then wondering why everything starts to unravel.

We’re talking about the age-old Account Manager vs. Project Manager debate.

Who should you hire? What should they be responsible for? Full-time or part-time? And, most importantly, what does “good” actually look like?

Here’s the brutal truth: trying to get one person to do both account management and project management is a mistake.

If you’ve been feeling a little uneasy about the agency landscape lately, you’re not imagining it.
The ground is shifting. Quietly for some. Violently for others.

Clients are slower to commit. Margins feel tighter. AI keeps eating anything that looks like a deliverable. Mergers are accelerating. Owners are burning out. And the market is finally asking agencies to grow up.

2026 isn’t going to reward the hustlers. It’s going to reward the businesses with depth. Structure. Capital.

Most agencies don’t stall because their team isn’t good enough, or because they’re still “on the tools,” or because the market is getting noisier.

They stall because the value proposition is still built on who the founder used to be, not what the market values now.

It looks like a strategic problem.
It’s actually an identity problem.

And it’s one of the most expensive forms of stuckness in our industry.

Most agencies don’t fail because of bad work.
They fail because no one can explain - clearly, simply, repeatably - how the work gets done.

And when that happens?
Every project is a bespoke adventure. Every new hire is a gamble. Every client experience is a coin toss. And the founder… well, they carry the whole thing in their head like a walking, talking hard drive on the verge of overheating.

It’s getting harder.

Margins are tighter. Salaries are up while client budgets contract. AI is everywhere… exciting, but also unsettling. Leads are slowing. Deals are smaller. Confidence is wobbling.

If you’re feeling the pressure, you’re not alone.
But the solution isn’t to panic, over-pivot… or launch another half-baked service.

This moment demands something deeper.

We still get agency clients asking about timesheets - not because they’re stuck in some 1990s billing model, but because they’re trying to run profitable, scalable service businesses.

And most of them ask the same questions:

• “What’s the best tool?”

• “How do I get the team to do them?”

• “Is there a way to make it fun?”

Let’s be honest for a second.

Does running your agency feel like it’s getting easier?

No?

Good. That means you’re paying attention.

Because the world your agency was built for is disappearing - and it’s not coming back.

You don’t fix complexity by adding more clarity.
You fix it by removing things.

That’s the hard bit. Most agency leaders don’t have a complexity problem, they have a deciding problem.

Let’s talk about Mike.

Jake ran a good agency.
Not a unicorn. Not a rocket ship. But solid. Twelve people, steady clients, decent margins, a few awards - the kind that prove you’re doing something right, even if you haven’t “arrived.”

He wasn’t burnt out. Just restless.

Tired of feast and famine.
Tired of selling time.
Tired of fixing fires.

And then, stuck in traffic one Tuesday, the idea hit: “We should build software.”

Missed deadlines aren’t a people problem… they’re a systems problem. Discover how one agency used “forcing functions” to replace chaos with clarity, and why structure is strategy made visible.

Ever wake up and think:
“I don’t want to do this anymore... but I also don’t want to leave”?

You’re not burnt out. You’re not failing. In fact, business might be going well. But the buzz of building your agency has faded, and the day-to-day grind of running it no longer excites you.

Maybe you want to get back on the tools. Or focus on the work you love. Or simply stop being the person everyone relies on for every decision.

That’s when the realisation hits: succession planning isn’t a “someday” idea. It’s a now problem.

And that’s not a crisis. That’s clarity.

If I had a pound for every time an agency leader said, “We just need a proper strategy,” I’d be somewhere warm and smug right now.

But let’s interrogate that.

Saying “we need a strategy” is like saying “we need to get fit.” It’s not wrong - but it’s not a plan.

Strategy isn’t a vibe or a to-do list. It’s a decision. About what game you’re playing, how you’ll win it, and what you won’t do anymore.

And here’s where most agencies get stuck: they call growth the strategy. But growth is an outcome, not a strategy.

So how do you set a real one? Let’s break it down.

Most agency founders don’t have real accountability.

They’ve got advisors. Teams. Maybe even a “strategy doc” buried in Google Drive.

But no one’s holding them to the hard decisions.
No one’s tracking follow-through.
No one’s challenging their thinking consistently.

That’s why so many agencies plateau.

You don’t need another strategy day.
You need a board. A real one. With rhythm, structure, and someone keeping it honest.

If you run a digital agency, you’ve probably felt it:

The things that used to work… don’t.

Clients are pulling back. Budgets are shrinking. AI is doing in seconds what used to take your team days. Talented people are leaving - or being let go.

And yet, your agency might still be running on the same model you built years ago.

So here’s the hard question: is that model still sustainable?

The future of agencies isn’t bleak - but it will punish those who don’t adapt.

Agencies hit a ceiling. One where delivery gets slower, recruitment gets riskier, and pricing becomes more arbitrary than strategic. The founder feels it in their gut - something’s off. But on the surface, everything looks okay.

The problem isn’t sales. It’s not marketing.
It’s not even your people.

It’s this: the work you're selling is too inconsistent to scale.

You’re selling creativity, but delivering chaos.

And chaos has a limit.