June 17, 2025 • 32 mins
Is your business growing, but it still feels messy?
This solo episode from Harv looks back at one year of The Handbook podcast, and it’s a big one. Harv recaps what he’s learned from a year of speaking with ops leaders across the agency world. He packages it all into one whirlwind tour of the five core pillars of operational maturity: people, process, tools, data, and growth.
If you’ve missed a few episodes (or want a cheat code to benchmark your agency’s ops maturity), this is your starting point. Or your reset.
Here’s what Harv dives into:
- Why operational maturity, not creativity or client relationships, is the biggest differentiator for scale
- What smart people practices actually look like, from efficient and effective hiring to career path frameworks
- How to build a sales engine that doesn’t rely on panicked effort or founder charisma
- Why a tech stack is only as good as the strategy underneath it
- What it really means to be data-driven, beyond just dashboards
- And what common agency growth mistakes still trip up even the most ambitious teams
Plus, you’ll hear key takeaways from guests like Manish Kapur, Karl Sakas, Preston Chandler, Jenny Plant, and many more.
Additional Resources:
- Harv’s webinar on documentation & best practice here: https://youtu.be/RroxOVlSwIk
- Learnings and tools from Freia Muehlenbein's 'how to pitch' episode: https://www.scoro.com/blog/how-to-pitch-a-client/
Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/harvnagra
Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook
This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Harv (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Handbook
(00:02):
Podcast.
This podcast is brought to youby Scoro.
Scoro is a PSA or professionalservices automation platform.
Don't blame me.
I did not come up with thatlabel, but yeah it's easy for
those of us in agencies toforget that ultimately we are
professional services businessesin the business of selling time.
A PSA platform helps your agencytake a leap in maturity from
(00:25):
disjointed tools andspreadsheets that don't talk to
one another, to a single sourceof truth for your business.
Bringing together quoting,project and time tracking,
invoicing and reporting into onebeautiful place so you don't
have to spend your time lookingup or copying and pasting data
from several different places.
I left my job as an in house opsdirector to work for Scoro
(00:46):
because I was so impressed.
Sign up for a free trial atscoro.com or if you arrange a
demo call, tell them Harv sentyou.
Now let's get to the episode.
Harv Nagra (00:56):
Hey all, I'm Harv Nagra.
Welcome back to the Handbook,the Ops podcast.
When I started this podcast justover a year ago, the goal was
simple.
Speak about ops, challenges withops people for an ops audience,
because from my experience, opscan be a lonely role in a
business.
I certainly felt that when I'dfirst moved into operations in
(01:17):
an agency many years ago.
Thankfully, that's changed.
Quite a lot over the last fewyears.
If you're a regular listener, Ihope that you'll find the
handbook has become one of thoseplaces where you can find
community ideas and inspiration.
When we're stuck doing things onour own, we might be less
creative or afraid of making bigchanges for fear of breaking
(01:40):
things or opening up a can ofworms.
It can be intimidating.
So coming back to the purpose ofthis podcast, it's been to share
experiences and learnings.
Not the glossy version, the realversion.
The version where the tools youbrought in are gathering dust.
Where your most trusted teammember hands in their notice and
(02:00):
you realize no one else knowshow to do what they do.
Where your agency is busy, butyour margins don't reflect it.
Where you've gone from peacefulto panicking about your pipeline
because the latest, crazedpolitician is on a power trip.
All of that stuff, so hopefullythrough the conversations we've
had on the podcast, It's givenyou some inspiration of things
(02:21):
to try at your own place ofwork.
It also led me to realizesomething several months ago;
that the biggest differentiatorbetween businesses that scale
and succeed versus those thatstruggle isn't just creativity
of work.
Or client relationships or theeconomy.
It's operational maturity.
A year in, I stand by that morethan ever.
(02:44):
And on reflection, all theepisodes of the podcast to date
fall neatly under the fivepillars, which I believe sit at
the heart of operations andwhich we need to ensure are all
being nudged towards highermaturity.
People, Process, tools, data andgrowth strategies.
Interrogating each of theseareas gives us perspective on
(03:06):
the gaps and the opportunitieswithin our own businesses.
So in today's episode, it's justme and we're gonna take a
whirlwind tour of these fivepillars and recap some of what
we've learned over the pastyear.
Let's dive in.
Let's start with people, thefoundation of your business, and
(03:26):
for an ops director, there's somuch here that we have to be
across.
There's hiring, retention,performance, culture,
communication.
Throwback to Sarah Brougham fromGen Flow.
In that episode I opened byconfessing I didn't have a great
track record with recruitment.
I felt the sting of those 20%fees, extended probation periods
(03:49):
and hires, that just didn't workout despite my best attempt to
make the hiring process asrigorous as possible.
Sarah told us at Gen Flow, she'sreduced time to hire to just six
weeks, which is super impressiveand has implemented a hiring
process to ensure she's hiringthe right team fit after too
(04:09):
many full starts, like I justdescribed in my case, and she's
set up a clear onboardingprocess that gets new joiners
productive, fast.
Here's a clip of Sarah talkingabout how she used to get wooed
by a great looking cv, but notany longer.
Sarah Brougham (04:25):
We've probably wasted hundreds of thousands of
pounds on employees who havebeen great on paper and may be
good for other agencies, but forus, we're just not the right fit
whatsoever.
I would look at a flashy CV andthink, wow, this person's been
at this brand and that brand,you know, obviously they're
going to come in and they'regoing to fix our problems
because they know how it works.
They'd come in and they're usedto working in a certain way and
it didn't work for us because wewere working with real people,
(04:47):
creators for one, they're notjust B2B clients.
And then also just their outlookon what pace should look like
internally and what growthshould look like.
So I think that was one majorlearning curve.
Harv Nagra (04:59):
Now, obviously it's not just about hiring and
onboarding.
We also need to think aboutcareers and growth for our team
members.
That's where Zoe Elizabeth blogfrom Reboot comes in.
She gave one of the bestexamples I've heard of how to
handle career paths in abusiness.
Not only do her team have a veryclear idea of how to get to the
(05:19):
next level, she encourages themto put themselves forward for
promotions if they think theyqualify and she actually does
salary reviews.
Four times a year.
I have never heard of such athing.
Zoe pointed out that thatdoesn't mean people get pay
rises four times a year,although theoretically I suppose
they could, but that she reviewsand gives people an opportunity
(05:41):
for the pay bump four times ayear so that there's not these
long stretches of having to waitif someone's earned it.
And in a competitive market,it's important that you can be
reactive and make a change whenit's the right time.
One of the best things I enjoyedabout hearing from Zoe was how
she has dual career paths forevery role in her agency, one
(06:05):
for people managers, and anotherpath for people that prefer to
be individual contributors.
We often have paths forpromotion in our agencies or our
businesses that is set up forline management.
It is super rare, in my view, tohave the deep consideration that
Zoe has for the individualcontributor path, for
(06:25):
individuals that don't wantthose responsibilities.
Here's a clip of Zoe talkingabout the IC career paths.
Zoe Blogg (06:32):
The murkiness of career paths is something I see
often.
As you mentioned, for IC roles,it lacks the clarity or prestige
that comes with some managementpositions.
So people do feel forced to gointo manager roles and they
don't know where else they cango.
So the career packs we've donefor Reboot, I've tried to make
that clear.
What we have for every managerrole is a corresponding IC
(06:56):
position.
So to put that into context, youmight have a manager and level
with them is a specialist inthat position.
So I would expect a specialistto be able to perform at a
manager level, but they're notlooking after people.
They can just run with theprojects and get it done.
So what the team can really seeis that.
Along these pathways is aparallel IC route and it comes
(07:17):
with that same reward, samesalary bands.
It's just differentexpectations.
Harv Nagra (07:23):
All right, so we've done the hiring, we've done the
onboarding, we've done thecareer paths and performance
reviews.
What's next?
Well, company culture, many ofus have struggled to really
crack the code on cultures sincethe world went hybrid and
remote.
Some of the magic has been lost.
So what do we do about that?
That's where my conversationwith agile and collaboration
(07:44):
coach Julia Vastrik comes in.
In a hybrid world.
Julia said that culture doesn'tlive in the office anymore.
It lives in your rituals.
Julia was saying it's absolutelystill possible to have a strong
company culture today, but ittakes more effort and more
intent.
It's no longer automatic.
We have to make a concertedeffort to build that culture.
(08:07):
One of the key takeaways for meis that we should create working
agreements that outlineexpectations around working
practices with our teams.
That way everyone's on the samepage.
Here's a clip.
Julia (08:20):
Team culture is not only having fun together, but it's
also to do work together.
And for this we need to haveexplicit agreements.
Where we decide how we work as ateam.
And this is not somethingwritten in stone, we experiment
with this, and then we mightadd, remove, change those
(08:40):
working agreements.
And overall, like, it should,should not be something very
long.
The longer, the, the morechances that people will not
remember.
So
Harv (08:49):
Okay.
Julia (08:49):
three rules, it's cool.
If it's five rules, it's alsogood.
Harv (08:53):
Yeah.
Hmm.
Julia (08:54):
for example, documentation, it also might be
part of working agreements.
What kind of documentation wehave, where we keep this, what
is necessary.
And how we collaborate, whatkind of tools we are using.
It might be also part of this.
Harv Nagra (09:09):
So If you've been struggling with company culture
in the work from home era,listen to this episode for some
inspiration.
Speaking of culture, one bigcultural change that's sweeping
through our workplaces is thefresh perspective that Gen Z are
bringing in.
It's estimated that around 30%of our workforce is Gen Z In
2025, my chat with Isobel Camierwas one that I know resonated
(09:33):
with a lot of people.
Isobel's research offered sixclear trends shaping this
generation's mindset at work andchallenged a lot of the
stereotypes.
If you're in a line managementrole, you're already managing
Gen Z, and this episode gave usa roadmap for doing it well.
Here's a clip from that episode.
Ironically, millennials,probably had a similar reaction
(09:55):
from their line managers,several years ago.
So it's funny how things comefull circle, but what would you
say to someone saying, you know,why should we make exceptions or
change the way we're working?
Isobel Camier (10:05):
First of all, I'd respond by asking, is what
you're doing working a hundredpercent of the time?
Has leadership and management inthe places that you have worked
never sort of evolved, changed?
We also know, cultures workbetter, workplaces are better,
when they're really inclusive.
Harv Nagra (10:25):
What stood out to me across all these episodes was
how interconnected the themeswere.
You can't talk about onboardingwithout talking about
performance.
You can't talk about performancewithout thinking about culture,
and you can't build a strongculture without understanding
who your team really is and whatthey need.
To thrive.
We had some other brilliantconversations about people as
(10:46):
well with Amy Hopper talkingabout productivity, and jenny
Plant, discussing the role ofthe hybrid account manager.
Do go check out all of the aboveif you haven't already or if you
need a refresher on thoseconversations.
all right, let's move on toprocess.
If people are the foundation,then process is the framework,
and that applies to theprocesses we follow to sell, to
(11:09):
pitch, to deliver and more.
Let's start with sales.
This was one of our most popularepisodes.
Ryan Hall brought a commerciallens to the process
conversation.
We talked about how mostagencies don't really have a
clear sales process, just astring of one-off efforts,
usually reliant on founderrelationships, referrals, or
(11:30):
repeat business.
We count too much on all of theabove.
We discussed in that episodethat when those inbound
opportunities dry up forwhatever reason, the lack of
structure in the sales processbecomes painfully obvious.
ryan walked us through how toset up an operationalized sales
engine Where we have the rightpeople for each stage of the
(11:54):
sales funnel, we have toolingwhich supports each stage of the
funnel, and most importantly,the sales efforts are
consistent.
Let's have a listen.
Ryan Hall (12:04):
There's a concept in lots of business' heads that,
like a light switch, you canturn sales on, you can turn
sales off.
We're seeing our pipeline drop.
We can see the visibility in ourrevenue starting to drop X
months out.
We'd better start doing sales."Light switch on.
And then all of a sudden they dosome things and they do it for
like a couple of weeks, maybe acouple of months, and it doesn't
(12:24):
work because it's just not thatquick.
Turn it off again.
And then the cycle repeats cuz"oh god maybe we should try the
thing again", but in six monthstime.
But the problem is you're justflicking a light switch on and
off, right?
And that's just fundamentallynot how sales works.
Harv Nagra (12:39):
Next, let's talk about pitching, because
unfortunately not everyopportunity coming our way is
just an RFQ or an RFP.
Often we have to pitch, I hatedpitching the amount of time and
effort that could get sunk intoa pitch.
And the risk of clients ghostingyou or the feeling that they're
just putting things to pitch, togenerate ideas.
(13:01):
It's absolutely awful.
to talk about how to make thepitching process less painful
and boost your chances ofwinning.
We had ops and growthconsultant, Freya Mullen on the
podcast for an effective pitchprocess.
She told us that we need tounderstand the client's needs
with better qualification,strategizing.
Data and insights towards this.
(13:22):
Freya recommended puttingtogether a pitch war room, a
dedicated team space where youstrategize how to win.
Discuss the client's need.
Identify key decision makers andclarify how your value
proposition aligns with theirsuccess and critically in the
war room.
Ensure that strategy is clearbefore working on the pitch
(13:44):
deck.
One of the most important thingsFya highlighted is that we need
to focus on ROI over tactics andpretty graphics.
Let's have a listen.
Freia (13:54):
I've collected pitch feedback from brands on behalf
of my clients for about sixyears now.
A lot of the common themes arearound, it's not strategic.
I don't know what I'm buying.
I know that you can do this,this, this, and this, and what's
wrong with my account.
But what am I actually buying?
And really what they want to buyis ROI.
And if we can't talk about that,and if we can't prove that,
(14:15):
we're going to lose the pitch.
Harv Nagra (14:17):
If you need to improve your pitch win rate,
there's an article we'veproduced on the Scoro website
with loads of great resourcesbased on Fres advice.
I'm gonna put a link to that inthe episode notes, so do check
it out.
All right, guys.
We've won the project and now weneed to deliver.
When I spoke to ops and techconsultant, Mike Della Porta, he
(14:39):
introduced to me the businesscapability maturity model.
The idea overlaps with thebusiness maturity models I often
refer to, but whereas I tend tofocus on the broader operational
maturity of a business.
The capability maturity modelMike was referring to also takes
a closer look at the things thatwe sell or produce in an agency,
(14:59):
things that we do.
How repeatable is all of that,Is that knowledge held with one
person and when they leave,things are going to grind to a
halt?
Mike, spoke to us about how wecan improve our capability
maturity, and what each stagelooks like so we can get better
and faster at delivery.
Let's have a listen.
Mike Della Porta (15:18):
A lot of times you might have somebody that's a
practitioner of a certaincapability or function, or maybe
even a service that you'redeveloping for your client.
And in the agency world, youknow, there's those old adages
of a fake it till you make it.
You know, maybe you have thatone person that's doing their
thing, but now the questioncomes up, well, we're doing this
(15:39):
for one customer.
How do we do it for twocustomers?
How do we do it for threecustomers?
And when that moment happens.
You kind of have to step backand say, okay, what is it about
what this person is doing orthis combination of people,
process and tech that we canreplicate and scale and deliver
on the promise for multipleclients and take advantage of
that opportunity.
Harv Nagra (15:59):
Now, we can't talk about process without talking
about change management.
Change is one of the hardestthings we have to manage as
operators, and if we don'thandle it well, it can lead to a
lot of pain and problems.
I think we've all been there.
Claire Quansah came on thepodcast to talk about this, and
one of the most interestingthings about the conversation
(16:20):
was us talking about the KublerRoss change curve.
It describes the stages of griefpeople go through when
experiencing a bereavement, andthe shocking thing is that this
model has been adopted in thebusiness world to describe the
reaction people have to changein the workplace.
So in this episode, Claire and Idived into managing change in a
(16:43):
way to ensure success.
Let's have a quick listen.
Claire Quansah (16:47):
It's very easy to kind of just dump a new
system onto people and hope thatit's going to work really,
really quickly and solve yourproblems.
And if it doesn't, then you knowwhat, you, you will be wasting
time and money, not just on thecost of the actual system or
tool itself, but people's time Ithink that then links to things
like people's own frustration interms of the way that they are
(17:11):
working and they can getfrustrated with the tool.
They can get frustrated with theorganization.
And if you start to getdifferent people that, you know,
go off in their own way, you'rethen creating more issues
yourself aren't you?
And then you end up notachieving the goals that you
were trying to achieve before interms of, whether that's to do
with visibility and insightsbecause then you've got
disparate sets of siloedinformation, and it becomes even
(17:33):
more confusing for everybody.
Harv Nagra (17:36):
now, before we move on from process, I just wanted
to mention that I've had acouple of solo episodes on the
podcast as well, And one of themdived into creating a
centralized agency handbook orknowledge base, which team
friendly tools you can use tocreate that documentation and
how to embed best practice inyour team.
There's a YouTube version ofthat webinar I gave on this
(17:58):
topic as well, which hasvisuals, so you may want to
check that out if these are someof the challenges you're facing
in your workplace.
There's a link to that in theepisode notes.
All right, we're ready to moveinto technology.
When it comes to businessmaturity, we get to a point
where everyone using whatevertools off the shelf no longer
becomes efficient.
(18:18):
So we have to take a morecontrolled approach to tool
selection and implementation,figuring out what's the right
fit for our business needs todayand into the future.
in my conversation with TylerCaskey of the Bean Counters, a
tech and accounting consultancy,We unpacked what happens when
agencies add more and more toolsto solve problems, He made a
(18:39):
great point.
There comes a point in everybusiness's growth and maturity
journey Where the disjointedtools start leading to data
errors, duplication of effort,and staff frustration.
This is especially caused whenthe tools aren't deeply
integrated and talking to oneanother.
Tyler's advice was toconsolidate wherever possible
(19:00):
and find platforms with nativeintegrations so your team is
able to work centrally, trustthe data and have it flow across
your system or systems, withouthaving to manually export,
import, copy and paste, andspend weeks reporting on it.
Here's a clip.
Tyler Caskey (19:17):
I think when there are multiple sources of data is
when it becomes reallychallenging.
You know, integration andautomatic two way integration is
really the market leadingposition at the moment.
I've found, you know, if you'vegot two best of breed systems,
you know, like a CRM thatdoesn't talk to your job system,
(19:39):
you're going to lose staffbecause they're manually
transitioning data andeveryone's got like their own
time value curves.
And you've just got thesemoments where you just feel like
your time's being wasted.
So I always look for systemsthat natively integrate or
integrate without human touch.
I like that, not only for likemaking my staff happier, it also
(20:04):
benefits the business because,you know, people are more
productive, that means they canget onto either revenue
generating activities or otherhigh value activities.
Harv Nagra (20:13):
Next.
We had tech consultant MatthewPeng on the podcast to help
unpack this further.
He brought a consultant'sperspective on what it takes to
actually scope and select theright tool.
'cause that's always a bigchallenge as well, right?
And not just grab the firstthing you see in a Google
search.
What I appreciated most was howMatt said the goal wasn't to
find The perfect tool it's todefine your requirements clearly
(20:36):
enough that you can make smarttrade-offs.
He also pointed out what wedon't want is to build a proof
of concept in a spreadsheet andstay with it forever.
There's tools that you can bringin that allow you to scale
smarter.
Let's have a listen.
Matthew Peng (20:52):
I definitely come across business owners all the
time and they still run thebusiness like they did perhaps
when they first started thebusiness and they haven't chosen
to evolve with standardoperating procedures.
Spreadsheets are always a greatstarting point to model the data
points you want to capture, butthat should not be the final
(21:13):
destination.
It is the starting point.
And once you figure out as abusiness owner what you need,
what is important, you need tovery quickly get off that so
that you can scale withsoftware.
Spreadsheets leave thosebusiness owners very exposed.
intelligence is missed whenyou're just managing in
spreadsheets and it gets lost intranslation.
Harv Nagra (21:35):
Another recent podcast we've had was with Ryan
Pearcy, another accounting andtech consultant from a company
called Digital Disruptors.
Ryan laid out what goes wrongwhen agencies build tech stacks
reactively.
Ryan's advice was to workbackwards from the insights you
want and then select the toolsto support those decisions.
(21:57):
he was saying that if you don'tknow what questions you're
trying to answer, no tool.
However powerful is gonna helpyou get clarity.
Let's have a listen.
What is the biggest mistake yousee businesses make when it
comes to their finance andoperations tech stack?
Ryan Pearcy (22:10):
Number one is they don't have an end goal, so they
will pick in silos, problemsthey've got and look to resolve
that issue.
But if you do that, all you endup with is lots of different
systems that don't communicateand don't deliver the ultimate
end position, which is clearvisibility of the key areas of
our business that enable us tomake decisions.
(22:30):
Start with where do we wanna getto and work backwards from that.
That's the number one issue thatmost businesses suffer.
Harv Nagra (22:37):
each of these episodes underscored the same
idea.
The most common tech problemagencies isn't bad software.
It's software without strategy.
We have so many distractions atthis point on our personal
devices and our work devicesfrom various apps we use.
At some point, The onus is on usas ops leaders to streamline and
simplify the workflow.
(22:58):
To that point, there was ageneral consensus amongst our
guests that in order to move upthe maturity stages, There comes
a point in your growth that aPSA platform like Scoro becomes
essential.
Without that, you end up havingchallenges with efficiency, with
accuracy, and with visibility onhow your projects and business
are doing.
(23:19):
All right, we're moving intometrics and data.
One of the biggest leaps inagency maturity is the ability
not just to collect data, butactually use it to steer where
you're going.
This came through reallypowerfully through some of the
conversations we've had on thetheme of data and metrics.
Let's start first with RyanMcNamara, head of ops at Rise at
seven.
Ryan is one of those people Iwant to be when I grow up, only,
(23:42):
he's probably a decade youngerthan me.
He's so switched on with hisunderstanding in finance and
metrics and really exemplifieswhat it means to be data-driven.
In his episode, he talked aboutthe three key areas that he
thinks every ops director shouldobsess about financial rigor,
performance culture, andoperational efficiency.
(24:03):
Let's have a listen.
Ryan McNamara (24:04):
know that not everyone loves maths and finance
and all those bits and pieces,but I like having information in
front of me that allows me tofigure out what's happening.
Um, so for me, it's about, youknow, clear reporting and
forecasting on sort of thefinancial and account
performance, within teams.
So you'd look at utilization andrevenue recognition, recovery,
and different sort of tools andmetrics like that.
(24:27):
but overall, If you're reallytrying to define it, I'd say
it's, it's enabling you to havethe right information about your
performance, businessperformance data, right now, you
can make a good decision todayand a good decision in two weeks
time.
that's what financial rigour isall about.
And what was, that's how youshould sort of view it.
Harv Nagra (24:44):
Next finops consultant, Richard Brett went
deep on the financial conceptsand metrics that actually matter
in a service-based business.
His crash course on financestarted with an explainer of
revenue recognition and why it'sso important, and then he moved
into utilization, how itconnects to recovery and
billable paid, and ultimatelyfuture month work value.
(25:08):
All of these metrics layer ontop of one another and help give
you a better understanding ofhow your business is performing.
Let's have a listen.
Richard Brett (25:17):
I think a lot of agencies are guilty of looking
at the past and going, oh, wedid brilliantly last month.
I don't really care if you didgreat last month because the
next three months look terrible.
Like what we're doing about thatwe can still impact and affect
change in those months, we can'tdo anything about what happened
last month.
So growing sustainably is abouttrying to work out, what do we
need to do to continue on thepath we want to go down whether
(25:40):
it's growing revenue or growingEBIT or hopefully both of those.
Harv Nagra (25:45):
so if you hear people say Being data-driven is
important, but you don'tactually know what that means,
speak to Rich and start bychecking out this episode.
Now onto the brilliant KarlSakas leadership and growth
consultant with Karl.
We spoke about the three biglevers for profitability,
pricing, scoping, and scopemanagement.
(26:07):
And how to move to value-basedpricing.
Karl also introduced the idea ofstrategic churn, where letting
go of low margin or bad fitclients can be one of the best
decisions for your bottom lineand for your team morale.
Let's have a listen.
Karl Sakas (26:23):
I have a concept I call strategic churn.
That's where you replaceprevious or current clients with
better new clients.
If it's a client you're okay tolose maybe they're gonna get a
higher increase if they wannastick around or a higher
increase if they want to keepworking with say the owner of
the agency where maybe the ownerused to work with lots of
clients directly.
If clients wanna keep workingwith the owner they're gonna be
(26:45):
paying a lot more for thatpremium service.
Harv Nagra (26:48):
If you don't know Karl, you should follow him.
and if you haven't listened,this episode was packed with
seriously good advice, as wellas Karl's predictions for what
the agency space is gonna looklike in the year 2030.
Before we move on.
I've said it many times, butwhen it comes to finance, we all
come into operations fromdifferent career paths.
(27:08):
We're better at some things thanothers For myself, finance was
one of those areas that I wasweaker in.
So you're not alone if you feellike you've got plenty to brush
up on.
In fact, that's one of thereasons I had Alfie Wenegieme on
the podcast from Cactus.
He challenged ops folks to stopdeferring to their finance
colleagues And start buildingfluency in the numbers
(27:31):
themselves.
In his view, finance is thereceipts that our operations and
our processes are working, thatwe're making more money and
performances on the up.
So we have to have thisknowledge.
Let's have a listen.
Alfie Wenegieme (27:45):
I feel ops person really needs to
understand finances to be ableto track whether or not what
they're doing is actuallyworking properly in the
business.
And if it's not, then figure itout and then approach your
operations a different way.
Tweak it, look at the reports,see the results, and see if it's
working or not.
(28:05):
As Peter Drucker said, what getsmeasured gets managed, and what
gets managed gets improved.
You have to be able to track itto be able to improve it.
Harv Nagra (28:15):
This episode was made for anyone that feels like
they've got a lot to learn inthis area and Alfie's way of
explaining things will make itincredibly easy.
Do go check it out.
All right, everyone.
We're in our final section.
We've talked about people,processes, technology, data, and
finance, and now we're gonnatalk growth strategies and
growth stories.
(28:36):
When it comes to growth, we'vehad plenty of lessons.
our first ever episode was withops consultant Manishh Kapur,
telling us about the operationalpillars that we need to sort out
to make sure that we're set upfor growth.
I.
We also had Preston ChandlerWPPs Global Practice Lead in
Strategic Operations on thepodcast.
Tell us that we need to stepback and look at the big picture
(28:58):
more often and be more strategicin our operations and not just
get buried in the tacticalstuff.
We've had agency consultant MaxTraylor on the podcast telling
us how we can build strongerrelationships with clients and
be seen as strategic partnersrather than just another agency.
We've had former agency founderand consultant Trenton Moss on
(29:21):
the podcast Telling us aboutloads of brilliant experiments
he ran in his agency, gettinghis team to become more client
and sales, setting up a Podstructure, how they set up a
board of directors to help guidethe agency and how they stumbled
in launching their agencyoverseas.
There's so much to learn in theepisode.
Go check it out.
We've recently had the geniusMarcel Petitpas on the podcast
(29:44):
telling you about the pitfallsto avoid at various growth
stages.
So what are the challengesagencies with a certain
headcount face, and how toensure that you remain
profitable throughout.
Another favorite episode of minewas Claire Hutchings from Chime
Agency telling us why agencymarketing usually sucks.
Why this is a terrible thing toneglect when the economy is in
(30:06):
the state that it's in, and howyou can build a strategy that's
sustainable.
So loads of interesting growthstories and growth strategies to
listen to do, go check out someof those episodes.
The point of today's episode wasto revisit some of the top
lessons from the past year as arefresher.
If there's a challenge you'refacing or something you need to
(30:27):
refresh yourself on, go back andcheck out the episodes, and I
didn't cover everything today,just some of the highlights in
each of these areas, people,processes, tech, data, and
growth strategies.
Now the podcast is called TheHandbook for a Reason.
When we launched this, I wantedit to be the Handbook for
Business Operations, a chapterfor everything.
(30:49):
Of course, we're not there yet.
The challenges we face inoperations are broad, and
there's loads more coming up,but if you wanna go see the
catalog of episodes that we haveup now, then go to
scoro.com/podcast and you cansee the full lineup there.
As always, everyone, a quickreminder that we have the
Handbook newsletter that goesout every other week with key
(31:13):
learnings from the latestepisode.
It means you don't have toremember everything or jot down
notes on your phone while you'relistening.
You get the takeaways in yourinbox to reference again, to
sign up to that, go toscore.com/podcast and sign up at
the bottom of the page.
And if you're a fan of thepodcast, share the episode with
a friend that would appreciateit.
(31:34):
Write the podcast on Apple orSpotify, especially if you've
never done so.
And take part in theconversation when you see me
post about the podcast.
On LinkedIn.
I really appreciate your supportand we'll be back soon with the
next episode.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to The Handbook
(00:02):
Podcast.
This podcast is brought to youby Scoro.
Scoro is a PSA or professionalservices automation platform.
Don't blame me.
I did not come up with thatlabel, but yeah it's easy for
those of us in agencies toforget that ultimately we are
professional services businessesin the business of selling time.
A PSA platform helps your agencytake a leap in maturity from
(00:25):
disjointed tools andspreadsheets that don't talk to
one another, to a single sourceof truth for your business.
Bringing together quoting,project and time tracking,
invoicing and reporting into onebeautiful place so you don't
have to spend your time lookingup or copying and pasting data
from several different places.
I left my job as an in house opsdirector to work for Scoro
(00:46):
because I was so impressed.
Sign up for a free trial atscoro.com or if you arrange a
demo call, tell them Harv sentyou.
Now let's get to the episode.
Harv Nagra (00:56):
Hey all, I'm Harv Nagra.
Welcome back to the Handbook,the Ops podcast.
When I started this podcast justover a year ago, the goal was
simple.
Speak about ops, challenges withops people for an ops audience,
because from my experience, opscan be a lonely role in a
business.
I certainly felt that when I'dfirst moved into operations in
(01:17):
an agency many years ago.
Thankfully, that's changed.
Quite a lot over the last fewyears.
If you're a regular listener, Ihope that you'll find the
handbook has become one of thoseplaces where you can find
community ideas and inspiration.
When we're stuck doing things onour own, we might be less
creative or afraid of making bigchanges for fear of breaking
(01:40):
things or opening up a can ofworms.
It can be intimidating.
So coming back to the purpose ofthis podcast, it's been to share
experiences and learnings.
Not the glossy version, the realversion.
The version where the tools youbrought in are gathering dust.
Where your most trusted teammember hands in their notice and
(02:00):
you realize no one else knowshow to do what they do.
Where your agency is busy, butyour margins don't reflect it.
Where you've gone from peacefulto panicking about your pipeline
because the latest, crazedpolitician is on a power trip.
All of that stuff, so hopefullythrough the conversations we've
had on the podcast, It's givenyou some inspiration of things
(02:21):
to try at your own place ofwork.
It also led me to realizesomething several months ago;
that the biggest differentiatorbetween businesses that scale
and succeed versus those thatstruggle isn't just creativity
of work.
Or client relationships or theeconomy.
It's operational maturity.
A year in, I stand by that morethan ever.
(02:44):
And on reflection, all theepisodes of the podcast to date
fall neatly under the fivepillars, which I believe sit at
the heart of operations andwhich we need to ensure are all
being nudged towards highermaturity.
People, Process, tools, data andgrowth strategies.
Interrogating each of theseareas gives us perspective on
(03:06):
the gaps and the opportunitieswithin our own businesses.
So in today's episode, it's justme and we're gonna take a
whirlwind tour of these fivepillars and recap some of what
we've learned over the pastyear.
Let's dive in.
Let's start with people, thefoundation of your business, and
(03:26):
for an ops director, there's somuch here that we have to be
across.
There's hiring, retention,performance, culture,
communication.
Throwback to Sarah Brougham fromGen Flow.
In that episode I opened byconfessing I didn't have a great
track record with recruitment.
I felt the sting of those 20%fees, extended probation periods
(03:49):
and hires, that just didn't workout despite my best attempt to
make the hiring process asrigorous as possible.
Sarah told us at Gen Flow, she'sreduced time to hire to just six
weeks, which is super impressiveand has implemented a hiring
process to ensure she's hiringthe right team fit after too
(04:09):
many full starts, like I justdescribed in my case, and she's
set up a clear onboardingprocess that gets new joiners
productive, fast.
Here's a clip of Sarah talkingabout how she used to get wooed
by a great looking cv, but notany longer.
Sarah Brougham (04:25):
We've probably wasted hundreds of thousands of
pounds on employees who havebeen great on paper and may be
good for other agencies, but forus, we're just not the right fit
whatsoever.
I would look at a flashy CV andthink, wow, this person's been
at this brand and that brand,you know, obviously they're
going to come in and they'regoing to fix our problems
because they know how it works.
They'd come in and they're usedto working in a certain way and
it didn't work for us because wewere working with real people,
(04:47):
creators for one, they're notjust B2B clients.
And then also just their outlookon what pace should look like
internally and what growthshould look like.
So I think that was one majorlearning curve.
Harv Nagra (04:59):
Now, obviously it's not just about hiring and
onboarding.
We also need to think aboutcareers and growth for our team
members.
That's where Zoe Elizabeth blogfrom Reboot comes in.
She gave one of the bestexamples I've heard of how to
handle career paths in abusiness.
Not only do her team have a veryclear idea of how to get to the
(05:19):
next level, she encourages themto put themselves forward for
promotions if they think theyqualify and she actually does
salary reviews.
Four times a year.
I have never heard of such athing.
Zoe pointed out that thatdoesn't mean people get pay
rises four times a year,although theoretically I suppose
they could, but that she reviewsand gives people an opportunity
(05:41):
for the pay bump four times ayear so that there's not these
long stretches of having to waitif someone's earned it.
And in a competitive market,it's important that you can be
reactive and make a change whenit's the right time.
One of the best things I enjoyedabout hearing from Zoe was how
she has dual career paths forevery role in her agency, one
(06:05):
for people managers, and anotherpath for people that prefer to
be individual contributors.
We often have paths forpromotion in our agencies or our
businesses that is set up forline management.
It is super rare, in my view, tohave the deep consideration that
Zoe has for the individualcontributor path, for
(06:25):
individuals that don't wantthose responsibilities.
Here's a clip of Zoe talkingabout the IC career paths.
Zoe Blogg (06:32):
The murkiness of career paths is something I see
often.
As you mentioned, for IC roles,it lacks the clarity or prestige
that comes with some managementpositions.
So people do feel forced to gointo manager roles and they
don't know where else they cango.
So the career packs we've donefor Reboot, I've tried to make
that clear.
What we have for every managerrole is a corresponding IC
(06:56):
position.
So to put that into context, youmight have a manager and level
with them is a specialist inthat position.
So I would expect a specialistto be able to perform at a
manager level, but they're notlooking after people.
They can just run with theprojects and get it done.
So what the team can really seeis that.
Along these pathways is aparallel IC route and it comes
(07:17):
with that same reward, samesalary bands.
It's just differentexpectations.
Harv Nagra (07:23):
All right, so we've done the hiring, we've done the
onboarding, we've done thecareer paths and performance
reviews.
What's next?
Well, company culture, many ofus have struggled to really
crack the code on cultures sincethe world went hybrid and
remote.
Some of the magic has been lost.
So what do we do about that?
That's where my conversationwith agile and collaboration
(07:44):
coach Julia Vastrik comes in.
In a hybrid world.
Julia said that culture doesn'tlive in the office anymore.
It lives in your rituals.
Julia was saying it's absolutelystill possible to have a strong
company culture today, but ittakes more effort and more
intent.
It's no longer automatic.
We have to make a concertedeffort to build that culture.
(08:07):
One of the key takeaways for meis that we should create working
agreements that outlineexpectations around working
practices with our teams.
That way everyone's on the samepage.
Here's a clip.
Julia (08:20):
Team culture is not only having fun together, but it's
also to do work together.
And for this we need to haveexplicit agreements.
Where we decide how we work as ateam.
And this is not somethingwritten in stone, we experiment
with this, and then we mightadd, remove, change those
(08:40):
working agreements.
And overall, like, it should,should not be something very
long.
The longer, the, the morechances that people will not
remember.
So
Harv (08:49):
Okay.
Julia (08:49):
three rules, it's cool.
If it's five rules, it's alsogood.
Harv (08:53):
Yeah.
Hmm.
Julia (08:54):
for example, documentation, it also might be
part of working agreements.
What kind of documentation wehave, where we keep this, what
is necessary.
And how we collaborate, whatkind of tools we are using.
It might be also part of this.
Harv Nagra (09:09):
So If you've been struggling with company culture
in the work from home era,listen to this episode for some
inspiration.
Speaking of culture, one bigcultural change that's sweeping
through our workplaces is thefresh perspective that Gen Z are
bringing in.
It's estimated that around 30%of our workforce is Gen Z In
2025, my chat with Isobel Camierwas one that I know resonated
(09:33):
with a lot of people.
Isobel's research offered sixclear trends shaping this
generation's mindset at work andchallenged a lot of the
stereotypes.
If you're in a line managementrole, you're already managing
Gen Z, and this episode gave usa roadmap for doing it well.
Here's a clip from that episode.
Ironically, millennials,probably had a similar reaction
(09:55):
from their line managers,several years ago.
So it's funny how things comefull circle, but what would you
say to someone saying, you know,why should we make exceptions or
change the way we're working?
Isobel Camier (10:05):
First of all, I'd respond by asking, is what
you're doing working a hundredpercent of the time?
Has leadership and management inthe places that you have worked
never sort of evolved, changed?
We also know, cultures workbetter, workplaces are better,
when they're really inclusive.
Harv Nagra (10:25):
What stood out to me across all these episodes was
how interconnected the themeswere.
You can't talk about onboardingwithout talking about
performance.
You can't talk about performancewithout thinking about culture,
and you can't build a strongculture without understanding
who your team really is and whatthey need.
To thrive.
We had some other brilliantconversations about people as
(10:46):
well with Amy Hopper talkingabout productivity, and jenny
Plant, discussing the role ofthe hybrid account manager.
Do go check out all of the aboveif you haven't already or if you
need a refresher on thoseconversations.
all right, let's move on toprocess.
If people are the foundation,then process is the framework,
and that applies to theprocesses we follow to sell, to
(11:09):
pitch, to deliver and more.
Let's start with sales.
This was one of our most popularepisodes.
Ryan Hall brought a commerciallens to the process
conversation.
We talked about how mostagencies don't really have a
clear sales process, just astring of one-off efforts,
usually reliant on founderrelationships, referrals, or
(11:30):
repeat business.
We count too much on all of theabove.
We discussed in that episodethat when those inbound
opportunities dry up forwhatever reason, the lack of
structure in the sales processbecomes painfully obvious.
ryan walked us through how toset up an operationalized sales
engine Where we have the rightpeople for each stage of the
(11:54):
sales funnel, we have toolingwhich supports each stage of the
funnel, and most importantly,the sales efforts are
consistent.
Let's have a listen.
Ryan Hall (12:04):
There's a concept in lots of business' heads that,
like a light switch, you canturn sales on, you can turn
sales off.
We're seeing our pipeline drop.
We can see the visibility in ourrevenue starting to drop X
months out.
We'd better start doing sales."Light switch on.
And then all of a sudden they dosome things and they do it for
like a couple of weeks, maybe acouple of months, and it doesn't
(12:24):
work because it's just not thatquick.
Turn it off again.
And then the cycle repeats cuz"oh god maybe we should try the
thing again", but in six monthstime.
But the problem is you're justflicking a light switch on and
off, right?
And that's just fundamentallynot how sales works.
Harv Nagra (12:39):
Next, let's talk about pitching, because
unfortunately not everyopportunity coming our way is
just an RFQ or an RFP.
Often we have to pitch, I hatedpitching the amount of time and
effort that could get sunk intoa pitch.
And the risk of clients ghostingyou or the feeling that they're
just putting things to pitch, togenerate ideas.
(13:01):
It's absolutely awful.
to talk about how to make thepitching process less painful
and boost your chances ofwinning.
We had ops and growthconsultant, Freya Mullen on the
podcast for an effective pitchprocess.
She told us that we need tounderstand the client's needs
with better qualification,strategizing.
Data and insights towards this.
(13:22):
Freya recommended puttingtogether a pitch war room, a
dedicated team space where youstrategize how to win.
Discuss the client's need.
Identify key decision makers andclarify how your value
proposition aligns with theirsuccess and critically in the
war room.
Ensure that strategy is clearbefore working on the pitch
(13:44):
deck.
One of the most important thingsFya highlighted is that we need
to focus on ROI over tactics andpretty graphics.
Let's have a listen.
Freia (13:54):
I've collected pitch feedback from brands on behalf
of my clients for about sixyears now.
A lot of the common themes arearound, it's not strategic.
I don't know what I'm buying.
I know that you can do this,this, this, and this, and what's
wrong with my account.
But what am I actually buying?
And really what they want to buyis ROI.
And if we can't talk about that,and if we can't prove that,
(14:15):
we're going to lose the pitch.
Harv Nagra (14:17):
If you need to improve your pitch win rate,
there's an article we'veproduced on the Scoro website
with loads of great resourcesbased on Fres advice.
I'm gonna put a link to that inthe episode notes, so do check
it out.
All right, guys.
We've won the project and now weneed to deliver.
When I spoke to ops and techconsultant, Mike Della Porta, he
(14:39):
introduced to me the businesscapability maturity model.
The idea overlaps with thebusiness maturity models I often
refer to, but whereas I tend tofocus on the broader operational
maturity of a business.
The capability maturity modelMike was referring to also takes
a closer look at the things thatwe sell or produce in an agency,
(14:59):
things that we do.
How repeatable is all of that,Is that knowledge held with one
person and when they leave,things are going to grind to a
halt?
Mike, spoke to us about how wecan improve our capability
maturity, and what each stagelooks like so we can get better
and faster at delivery.
Let's have a listen.
Mike Della Porta (15:18):
A lot of times you might have somebody that's a
practitioner of a certaincapability or function, or maybe
even a service that you'redeveloping for your client.
And in the agency world, youknow, there's those old adages
of a fake it till you make it.
You know, maybe you have thatone person that's doing their
thing, but now the questioncomes up, well, we're doing this
(15:39):
for one customer.
How do we do it for twocustomers?
How do we do it for threecustomers?
And when that moment happens.
You kind of have to step backand say, okay, what is it about
what this person is doing orthis combination of people,
process and tech that we canreplicate and scale and deliver
on the promise for multipleclients and take advantage of
that opportunity.
Harv Nagra (15:59):
Now, we can't talk about process without talking
about change management.
Change is one of the hardestthings we have to manage as
operators, and if we don'thandle it well, it can lead to a
lot of pain and problems.
I think we've all been there.
Claire Quansah came on thepodcast to talk about this, and
one of the most interestingthings about the conversation
(16:20):
was us talking about the KublerRoss change curve.
It describes the stages of griefpeople go through when
experiencing a bereavement, andthe shocking thing is that this
model has been adopted in thebusiness world to describe the
reaction people have to changein the workplace.
So in this episode, Claire and Idived into managing change in a
(16:43):
way to ensure success.
Let's have a quick listen.
Claire Quansah (16:47):
It's very easy to kind of just dump a new
system onto people and hope thatit's going to work really,
really quickly and solve yourproblems.
And if it doesn't, then you knowwhat, you, you will be wasting
time and money, not just on thecost of the actual system or
tool itself, but people's time Ithink that then links to things
like people's own frustration interms of the way that they are
(17:11):
working and they can getfrustrated with the tool.
They can get frustrated with theorganization.
And if you start to getdifferent people that, you know,
go off in their own way, you'rethen creating more issues
yourself aren't you?
And then you end up notachieving the goals that you
were trying to achieve before interms of, whether that's to do
with visibility and insightsbecause then you've got
disparate sets of siloedinformation, and it becomes even
(17:33):
more confusing for everybody.
Harv Nagra (17:36):
now, before we move on from process, I just wanted
to mention that I've had acouple of solo episodes on the
podcast as well, And one of themdived into creating a
centralized agency handbook orknowledge base, which team
friendly tools you can use tocreate that documentation and
how to embed best practice inyour team.
There's a YouTube version ofthat webinar I gave on this
(17:58):
topic as well, which hasvisuals, so you may want to
check that out if these are someof the challenges you're facing
in your workplace.
There's a link to that in theepisode notes.
All right, we're ready to moveinto technology.
When it comes to businessmaturity, we get to a point
where everyone using whatevertools off the shelf no longer
becomes efficient.
(18:18):
So we have to take a morecontrolled approach to tool
selection and implementation,figuring out what's the right
fit for our business needs todayand into the future.
in my conversation with TylerCaskey of the Bean Counters, a
tech and accounting consultancy,We unpacked what happens when
agencies add more and more toolsto solve problems, He made a
(18:39):
great point.
There comes a point in everybusiness's growth and maturity
journey Where the disjointedtools start leading to data
errors, duplication of effort,and staff frustration.
This is especially caused whenthe tools aren't deeply
integrated and talking to oneanother.
Tyler's advice was toconsolidate wherever possible
(19:00):
and find platforms with nativeintegrations so your team is
able to work centrally, trustthe data and have it flow across
your system or systems, withouthaving to manually export,
import, copy and paste, andspend weeks reporting on it.
Here's a clip.
Tyler Caskey (19:17):
I think when there are multiple sources of data is
when it becomes reallychallenging.
You know, integration andautomatic two way integration is
really the market leadingposition at the moment.
I've found, you know, if you'vegot two best of breed systems,
you know, like a CRM thatdoesn't talk to your job system,
(19:39):
you're going to lose staffbecause they're manually
transitioning data andeveryone's got like their own
time value curves.
And you've just got thesemoments where you just feel like
your time's being wasted.
So I always look for systemsthat natively integrate or
integrate without human touch.
I like that, not only for likemaking my staff happier, it also
(20:04):
benefits the business because,you know, people are more
productive, that means they canget onto either revenue
generating activities or otherhigh value activities.
Harv Nagra (20:13):
Next.
We had tech consultant MatthewPeng on the podcast to help
unpack this further.
He brought a consultant'sperspective on what it takes to
actually scope and select theright tool.
'cause that's always a bigchallenge as well, right?
And not just grab the firstthing you see in a Google
search.
What I appreciated most was howMatt said the goal wasn't to
find The perfect tool it's todefine your requirements clearly
(20:36):
enough that you can make smarttrade-offs.
He also pointed out what wedon't want is to build a proof
of concept in a spreadsheet andstay with it forever.
There's tools that you can bringin that allow you to scale
smarter.
Let's have a listen.
Matthew Peng (20:52):
I definitely come across business owners all the
time and they still run thebusiness like they did perhaps
when they first started thebusiness and they haven't chosen
to evolve with standardoperating procedures.
Spreadsheets are always a greatstarting point to model the data
points you want to capture, butthat should not be the final
(21:13):
destination.
It is the starting point.
And once you figure out as abusiness owner what you need,
what is important, you need tovery quickly get off that so
that you can scale withsoftware.
Spreadsheets leave thosebusiness owners very exposed.
intelligence is missed whenyou're just managing in
spreadsheets and it gets lost intranslation.
Harv Nagra (21:35):
Another recent podcast we've had was with Ryan
Pearcy, another accounting andtech consultant from a company
called Digital Disruptors.
Ryan laid out what goes wrongwhen agencies build tech stacks
reactively.
Ryan's advice was to workbackwards from the insights you
want and then select the toolsto support those decisions.
(21:57):
he was saying that if you don'tknow what questions you're
trying to answer, no tool.
However powerful is gonna helpyou get clarity.
Let's have a listen.
What is the biggest mistake yousee businesses make when it
comes to their finance andoperations tech stack?
Ryan Pearcy (22:10):
Number one is they don't have an end goal, so they
will pick in silos, problemsthey've got and look to resolve
that issue.
But if you do that, all you endup with is lots of different
systems that don't communicateand don't deliver the ultimate
end position, which is clearvisibility of the key areas of
our business that enable us tomake decisions.
(22:30):
Start with where do we wanna getto and work backwards from that.
That's the number one issue thatmost businesses suffer.
Harv Nagra (22:37):
each of these episodes underscored the same
idea.
The most common tech problemagencies isn't bad software.
It's software without strategy.
We have so many distractions atthis point on our personal
devices and our work devicesfrom various apps we use.
At some point, The onus is on usas ops leaders to streamline and
simplify the workflow.
(22:58):
To that point, there was ageneral consensus amongst our
guests that in order to move upthe maturity stages, There comes
a point in your growth that aPSA platform like Scoro becomes
essential.
Without that, you end up havingchallenges with efficiency, with
accuracy, and with visibility onhow your projects and business
are doing.
(23:19):
All right, we're moving intometrics and data.
One of the biggest leaps inagency maturity is the ability
not just to collect data, butactually use it to steer where
you're going.
This came through reallypowerfully through some of the
conversations we've had on thetheme of data and metrics.
Let's start first with RyanMcNamara, head of ops at Rise at
seven.
Ryan is one of those people Iwant to be when I grow up, only,
(23:42):
he's probably a decade youngerthan me.
He's so switched on with hisunderstanding in finance and
metrics and really exemplifieswhat it means to be data-driven.
In his episode, he talked aboutthe three key areas that he
thinks every ops director shouldobsess about financial rigor,
performance culture, andoperational efficiency.
(24:03):
Let's have a listen.
Ryan McNamara (24:04):
know that not everyone loves maths and finance
and all those bits and pieces,but I like having information in
front of me that allows me tofigure out what's happening.
Um, so for me, it's about, youknow, clear reporting and
forecasting on sort of thefinancial and account
performance, within teams.
So you'd look at utilization andrevenue recognition, recovery,
and different sort of tools andmetrics like that.
(24:27):
but overall, If you're reallytrying to define it, I'd say
it's, it's enabling you to havethe right information about your
performance, businessperformance data, right now, you
can make a good decision todayand a good decision in two weeks
time.
that's what financial rigour isall about.
And what was, that's how youshould sort of view it.
Harv Nagra (24:44):
Next finops consultant, Richard Brett went
deep on the financial conceptsand metrics that actually matter
in a service-based business.
His crash course on financestarted with an explainer of
revenue recognition and why it'sso important, and then he moved
into utilization, how itconnects to recovery and
billable paid, and ultimatelyfuture month work value.
(25:08):
All of these metrics layer ontop of one another and help give
you a better understanding ofhow your business is performing.
Let's have a listen.
Richard Brett (25:17):
I think a lot of agencies are guilty of looking
at the past and going, oh, wedid brilliantly last month.
I don't really care if you didgreat last month because the
next three months look terrible.
Like what we're doing about thatwe can still impact and affect
change in those months, we can'tdo anything about what happened
last month.
So growing sustainably is abouttrying to work out, what do we
need to do to continue on thepath we want to go down whether
(25:40):
it's growing revenue or growingEBIT or hopefully both of those.
Harv Nagra (25:45):
so if you hear people say Being data-driven is
important, but you don'tactually know what that means,
speak to Rich and start bychecking out this episode.
Now onto the brilliant KarlSakas leadership and growth
consultant with Karl.
We spoke about the three biglevers for profitability,
pricing, scoping, and scopemanagement.
(26:07):
And how to move to value-basedpricing.
Karl also introduced the idea ofstrategic churn, where letting
go of low margin or bad fitclients can be one of the best
decisions for your bottom lineand for your team morale.
Let's have a listen.
Karl Sakas (26:23):
I have a concept I call strategic churn.
That's where you replaceprevious or current clients with
better new clients.
If it's a client you're okay tolose maybe they're gonna get a
higher increase if they wannastick around or a higher
increase if they want to keepworking with say the owner of
the agency where maybe the ownerused to work with lots of
clients directly.
If clients wanna keep workingwith the owner they're gonna be
(26:45):
paying a lot more for thatpremium service.
Harv Nagra (26:48):
If you don't know Karl, you should follow him.
and if you haven't listened,this episode was packed with
seriously good advice, as wellas Karl's predictions for what
the agency space is gonna looklike in the year 2030.
Before we move on.
I've said it many times, butwhen it comes to finance, we all
come into operations fromdifferent career paths.
(27:08):
We're better at some things thanothers For myself, finance was
one of those areas that I wasweaker in.
So you're not alone if you feellike you've got plenty to brush
up on.
In fact, that's one of thereasons I had Alfie Wenegieme on
the podcast from Cactus.
He challenged ops folks to stopdeferring to their finance
colleagues And start buildingfluency in the numbers
(27:31):
themselves.
In his view, finance is thereceipts that our operations and
our processes are working, thatwe're making more money and
performances on the up.
So we have to have thisknowledge.
Let's have a listen.
Alfie Wenegieme (27:45):
I feel ops person really needs to
understand finances to be ableto track whether or not what
they're doing is actuallyworking properly in the
business.
And if it's not, then figure itout and then approach your
operations a different way.
Tweak it, look at the reports,see the results, and see if it's
working or not.
(28:05):
As Peter Drucker said, what getsmeasured gets managed, and what
gets managed gets improved.
You have to be able to track itto be able to improve it.
Harv Nagra (28:15):
This episode was made for anyone that feels like
they've got a lot to learn inthis area and Alfie's way of
explaining things will make itincredibly easy.
Do go check it out.
All right, everyone.
We're in our final section.
We've talked about people,processes, technology, data, and
finance, and now we're gonnatalk growth strategies and
growth stories.
(28:36):
When it comes to growth, we'vehad plenty of lessons.
our first ever episode was withops consultant Manishh Kapur,
telling us about the operationalpillars that we need to sort out
to make sure that we're set upfor growth.
I.
We also had Preston ChandlerWPPs Global Practice Lead in
Strategic Operations on thepodcast.
Tell us that we need to stepback and look at the big picture
(28:58):
more often and be more strategicin our operations and not just
get buried in the tacticalstuff.
We've had agency consultant MaxTraylor on the podcast telling
us how we can build strongerrelationships with clients and
be seen as strategic partnersrather than just another agency.
We've had former agency founderand consultant Trenton Moss on
(29:21):
the podcast Telling us aboutloads of brilliant experiments
he ran in his agency, gettinghis team to become more client
and sales, setting up a Podstructure, how they set up a
board of directors to help guidethe agency and how they stumbled
in launching their agencyoverseas.
There's so much to learn in theepisode.
Go check it out.
We've recently had the geniusMarcel Petitpas on the podcast
(29:44):
telling you about the pitfallsto avoid at various growth
stages.
So what are the challengesagencies with a certain
headcount face, and how toensure that you remain
profitable throughout.
Another favorite episode of minewas Claire Hutchings from Chime
Agency telling us why agencymarketing usually sucks.
Why this is a terrible thing toneglect when the economy is in
(30:06):
the state that it's in, and howyou can build a strategy that's
sustainable.
So loads of interesting growthstories and growth strategies to
listen to do, go check out someof those episodes.
The point of today's episode wasto revisit some of the top
lessons from the past year as arefresher.
If there's a challenge you'refacing or something you need to
(30:27):
refresh yourself on, go back andcheck out the episodes, and I
didn't cover everything today,just some of the highlights in
each of these areas, people,processes, tech, data, and
growth strategies.
Now the podcast is called TheHandbook for a Reason.
When we launched this, I wantedit to be the Handbook for
Business Operations, a chapterfor everything.
(30:49):
Of course, we're not there yet.
The challenges we face inoperations are broad, and
there's loads more coming up,but if you wanna go see the
catalog of episodes that we haveup now, then go to
scoro.com/podcast and you cansee the full lineup there.
As always, everyone, a quickreminder that we have the
Handbook newsletter that goesout every other week with key
(31:13):
learnings from the latestepisode.
It means you don't have toremember everything or jot down
notes on your phone while you'relistening.
You get the takeaways in yourinbox to reference again, to
sign up to that, go toscore.com/podcast and sign up at
the bottom of the page.
And if you're a fan of thepodcast, share the episode with
a friend that would appreciateit.
(31:34):
Write the podcast on Apple orSpotify, especially if you've
never done so.
And take part in theconversation when you see me
post about the podcast.
On LinkedIn.
I really appreciate your supportand we'll be back soon with the
next episode.
Thank you so much.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.