How To Run An Agency That Doesn't Suck

This is the WTF Agency Method, out loud. Return on Understanding, positioning that actually costs you work, pricing that survives a good year, and the deeply unglamorous operating stuff that decides whether you own an asset or a job with extra steps.

You'll find essays, frameworks, hard-earned lessons, and the occasional hot take about what's happening in marketing. No BS, no "buy my system." Just thoughts and insights from a guy that has started 3 agencies, sold 2 & crashed 1 into the side of a mountain. I've worked with over 300 agencies to help them grow more revenue, more profit & more happy.

Content Marketing

Stop Being The Only Voice: How To Turn Your Team Into Your Content Engine

Aug 12, 2026 · 9 min

Agency Growth

Fourteen Open Tabs: Why Tactics Content Will Never Fix Your Pipeline

How To Run An Agency That Doesn't Suck

Stop Being The Only Voice: How To Turn Your Team Into Your Content Engine

Fourteen Open Tabs: Why Tactics Content Will Never Fix Your Pipeline

Your Culture Deck Is Not A Vibe: Why Agencies Market From The Wrong Side Of The Glass

The Dashboard Lie: Why You Hit Every KPI And Lost The Client Anyway

The 7-Minute Case Study

How to Measure Content Marketing (Presence, Not Pageviews)

Founder Funk: The Cure for Agency Owners Stuck in the Middle

How Agencies Actually Distribute Content (Atomize, Engage, Hedge)

What a Great Agency Discovery Call Actually Sounds Like

What Is Demand Generation for Agencies?

AI Content That Doesn't Sound Like Everyone Else

The Agency Discovery Call Checklist (Before, During, After)

Discovery Call Questions That Surface the Real Problem

Pre-Mortem Your Sales Calls: Handle The Objection Before They Raise It

20% More Revenue, 3% More Cost: The 85% Profit Story

Referral Roulette: Why Your "Growth Strategy" Is Actually Just A Really Good Mood

Stop Being Fucking Boring: Why Your Agency Needs a 'One Weird Thing'

The Impact Gradient: Why Cold Outreach Fails Without Brand Authority

The Only Sales Metric That Actually Matters

The Math of Account Growth: Net Revenue Retention for Agencies

Your Next 10 Agency Clients Are the Ones You Already Have

Your Account Managers Are Your Most Underused Sales Team

From Provider to Partner: The Agency Account-Growth System

The RACI Matrix for Agencies: Hand Off the Orb of Authority

How to Run an Agency Postmortem (Without Losing Your Whole Team)

The Catastrophic Brainstorm: A Pre-Mortem for Big, Risky Agency Projects

The 60-Second Pre-Mortem: Catch Small Agency Mistakes Before They Happen

Fix This Before It Breaks: Why Your Agency Is Always Falling Apart

Why Every Agency Sales Hire You Made Failed (and 3 Fixes)

The 7 Dimensions of a Real Agency Growth Diagnostic

AI Prompts for Discovery Calls: Pre-Call Research, Scoring, and Recap

Are You the Founder Bottleneck? 7 Calendar Tells

The 12 Numbers Every Agency Owner Tracks (and Why)

The ICP Scoring Rubric Template Agencies Actually Use

The Discovery Call Preparation Framework (Different Buyers Need Different Prep)

Competitive Positioning for Agencies: Niche, Price, or Process (Pick One)

Pre-Call Research in 15 Minutes: The Checklist Agencies (Should) Actually Use

Why Agencies Plateau at $1M, $3M, and $5M (and What Breaks at Each)

The ICP Scoring Prompt for AI Sales Agents

What Is Horizontal Growth? Definition, Examples, and the Real Tradeoffs

The Founder Tax: You Are Lighting $127,000 On Fire

Horizontal vs Vertical Agency Growth: Which Path Is Right?

Sales Is a Service, Not a Performance: A New Sales Philosophy

The GTM Stack That Actually Wins Deals (And the 5 Rules That Make It Work)

How to Know If a Prospect Is Worth Your Time In the First 5 Minutes

What's The Difference Between A Discovery Call and a Sales Call?

"Just Send Me a Proposal" Isn't A Win - It's A Signal That You Need to Fix Your Sales Approach

Stop Calling It Lead Gen: Why the Best Agencies Win Deals Before Others Even Know The Prospect Is In Market

The Agency Discovery Call Playbook: What We Got Wrong and How We Fixed It

From Marketer to Agency Leader - The Transformation

Top 20 Sales Resources for Agency Owners

The Definitive Agency ICP Guide: Build, Score & Refine Your Ideal Client Profile

Agency Cash Flow Playbook: Advance Billing That Protects Profit

Positioning Is Sacrifice — Why Saying No Grows Your Agency

You Can't Outbound Your Way Out of Obscurity — Agency Lead Gen

Managing People, Not Tasks — The Leadership Shift That Changes Everything

Build a Culture of Execution Using the Next 5 Framework

Market Your Agency Using the Next 5 Framework

The 5-Minute Management Hack for Busy Agency Leaders

The Next 5: UNSCALE in Action — Framework Case Study

UNSCALE: Why Scaling Your Agency Might Be Killing It

Top Agency Pain Points — And How to Fix Every One

AI in Agencies — How Smart Agency Owners Are Using AI

The Leadership Lever — Small Shifts, Big Agency Impact

What Would You Do? A Decision Framework for Agency Owners

Going Upmarket — How Agencies Land Bigger Clients

25 Marketing Agency Trends That Changed in 2024

Creating Urgency in Agency Sales (Without Being Pushy)

Dave Jackson on Agency Growth — The Kilroy Report

Unlock Your Agency's Hidden Potential

The 2 Challenges Every Agency Owner Faces

Results vs Outcomes — Why the Distinction Matters for Agencies

The Eisenhower Matrix for Agency Owners — Prioritize What Matters

Advice to Agency Leaders — Stop Managing, Start Leading

2 Employee Review Mistakes Agency Owners Keep Making

Agency Revenue Forecasting — Why It's Hard and How to Fix It

John Hill Part 2 — Scaling an Agency

Beyond Price — What Agency Clients Actually Care About

How to Find More Clients for Your Agency