Driving and maintaining momentum
The fundamentals of running an agency business are usually very simple: selling services of value to clients, and finding the right balance of people to deliver that value.
The barriers to entry are low as all you really need in the early days is a good name, a desk, phone, Mac and plenty of hunger.
From the outset of the business it is however vital to put in place the right level of infrastructure. You need to be flexible and yet cost effective.
At the outset the drive of the founders will be enough to move the business forward. There will be various points where you notice that the business needs to change or it has changed,and momentum may be slipping:
Expanding either in the UK or abroad.
Lack of a real understanding of how to maximise new client opportunities.
The need to scale your staffing and put in place professional management.
Founders trying to do too much and becoming overstretched.
You cannot always notice the changes that are happening whilst in the midst of managing the business
Attracting and retaining great staff
Great staff are the engine of successful agencies and form a central part of agency USP.
Good people will have a number of agencies looking to work with them, so you need to be competing for the best, and getting the most out of them once you have them on-board.
You need to think about your employee proposition, from office environment, culture, soft benefits, remuneration to growth prospects.
Share options should be considered as part of a strategic approach to rewarding and retaining key staff.
Despite best intentions, a business needs to be able to exit staff in a way that is clean and fair and the starting point for that is a structured HR process.
Growing through to exit and beyond
Not all owners look to sell their agencies, but many of the steps in building an agency for sale are good practical steps that any business should look to put in place.
Thorough legal agreements to cover shareholder relations, proper tax planning, segregation of duties, controls and procedures are some examples of good practice that should be in place anyway and it may then just be a question of layering on additional processes as you come towards the sale.
The larger the business becomes the more there is to lose and the more complex the business will become whether you want it to or not!