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Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
New episodes delivered every Tuesday.
Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey, everyone. Today I'm joined by Leah leaves. She is the founder and CEO of Alderaan operations solutions, where she partners with remote digital agencies to embed expert operations leadership that clarifies team roles, reduces burnout and enables owners to focus on growth instead of daily firefighting. Now I wanted to have Leia on because too many agency owners are stuck in operations, and it's stalling growth, and it's leading to them burning out, and as we have all seen, at some point, your growth goals are way harder to hit to achieve when you can't escape the day to day. In this episode, we discuss getting your team to make confident decisions, building a CEO GPT to scale founder judgment metrics that show if your ops are truly working and more. Lead Gen is the hardest part of running an agency. For most it's unpredictable, it's slow and it's usually expensive. GF flips that. It's the all in one growth platform that turns your existing relationships and client work into a steady pipeline. Gia automates lead gen follow up and content, and it's all from the work you're already doing. You can check it out and get some free bonuses at get gia.ai/dynamic agency, and now Leia leaves. It's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward. When an agency owner says, I am the bottleneck. What does that actually mean for the day to day?
Leah Leaves 1:44
So other than feeling like your hair is on fire and you're jumping from Slack message to Slack message, the biggest issue that we see with agency owners still being the bottleneck, and what that actually looks like in practice, is that they are still the decision maker for everything, and so it shows up where their team is waiting, and then the owner is like, wondering, what's going on? Why isn't anyone moving forward? Why hasn't the client been responded to? Why hasn't this campaign been launched? It could be the simplest things that everybody is waiting on because they're so used to that the authority coming from the top, and so you're having an incredible slowdown in production. You're having to constantly be in meetings or conversations or slack messages, answering questions rather than asking them, and being curious you know, and encouraging people to come up with solutions. And so everything is routing, you know, through, you know, the owner and and it shows up in really insidious ways, right? So it's not just the obvious of, oh, this client wasn't responded to, you know, and why? Why didn't somebody do that? It's because, oh, they were waiting to hear back from the owner on how to respond. It can be in other insidious ways that honestly, the the team you know is not having that psychological safety, you know, to own their roles, you know, and do what they were hired to do, you know. And so it's a breakdown in the actual fiber of the agency itself, because everything is dependent on the owner. So it feels really intense for the owner, and it feels really uncomfortable for the for the team and the people that also, you know, get impacted, you know, are the clients, of course, you know, because they're always been having to jump back and forth between the team, you know, or the owner, the owner, and then the team. They don't know who to go to for what, and they're just not having clear communication. So can show up in a lot of ways, but primarily that's where we see it the most, is like the core bottleneck is they are the decision maker, ultimately.
Chris DuBois 3:55
So when I was still in the army, one of the things that I really wanted to push decision making authority down to the lowest level. And I would often get my soldiers, like, the kind of the leaders within my organization would come to me and say, Hey, sir, I want to do this. What would you recommend? Or how should we do it? And so I just said, Well, let's talk through it. What would you do? And they give me that answer. I'm like, Cool, do that. And, like, it wouldn't give any advice. Just go do that. Then they would, and it was fine. Eventually they learned, like, he's just gonna tell me to do whatever I'm thinking. And like, they went with that. When I tried using that in the agency space, it did not work as well. And I don't know if it's because of the, like, a lack of confidence from the people who are coming in or like, there was something else, but I guess that the direct translation there did not work for me. What would you recommend people do in order to get people making decisions?
Leah Leaves 4:49
That's such a great, a great analogy to bring up, you know, of what works, you know, in another environment doesn't work in agencies, because I see the same actually, you know. That working in, you know, other small, remote service based businesses, you know, and then coming into agency land many a day ago myself, you know, that there were certain things that just didn't click, you know. And, and I think part of it genuinely is, you know, there is the culture is bred, you know, for a little bit more of this kind of chaotic, fast moving pace, you know, and and so people may 2 guess themselves or question themselves, or may not have literally had enough time in the role before, you know, to feel confident, you know, in even putting forth, you know, an option. And so I rely a lot on frameworks, you know, and systems you know that give them just enough of a container and give them just enough of an environment unit to point them in in a specific direction, you know, but still empowers them to bring forth, you know, the potential solution. So a great example of this is the 131, framework from Dan Martell, you know, where the you ask the individual, you know, rather than okay, just like, what would you do? You say, Okay, hey, first and foremost, let's state the problem. Like, what? What is the root issue that you're trying to solve here? And can you get it into, like, a sentence or less, you know? Because if they can't even do that, you can't ask them for the solution. You can't ask them, you know, to put forth ideas on how to fix it, if they don't understand what they're fixing to begin with, you know. So that's the first exercise to just put it into one problem statement, you know. Then when they can articulate that good enough, you know, to move forward, you know, then you say, Okay, now give me three potential solutions, you know, I want to hear one that may be totally wacky, you know, off the wall, like very, very ambitious. You may be one that's a little more conservative, you know, that you might expect, you know, that I would say myself, you know, or that you would be expected from, you know. And then one that could be something nobody would have ever thought of before, you know. Go play with chat, GPT or Claude, you know, something like that, you know. And come up with something quirky, you know, or kooky, you know. And then, out of those three ideas. This is the bookend to the one for one is Now, which one would you recommend? So now you still give them the power so empowering them to bring forth their ideas and why they think it's the right fit for this particular problem. So you can still say, Yep, great, go do that. Yeah, but it gives them a bit of a tool to start with, so that they're not feeling like they're they're floundering, they're trying to come up, you know, from something, you know, from nothing, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall gives them just enough of that container that they go, Oh, okay, here's how I can think through this, you know. And I'm still in charge. I can still make that decision ultimately, you know, it's in my hands, right?
Chris DuBois 7:45
I actually, I'd put a, I love that model, and I'd put a calendar event on my Sunday. It was just recurring so that and it had the description of, like everything you just said, so that a team member, when wanting to book with me could just copy that description and paste it into the their invite. And when I initiated that and said, Hey, you have any meeting with me for, like, a challenge, you got to go through this, magically, all of my meetings started to disappear for those so whether they were actually solving them, or they just didn't want the hassle of having to go through that, like, it kind of forced people to have to take a little more control. So I thought that was cool,
Leah Leaves 8:21
yeah, and that's one of the reasons I actually love using tools, you know, like chat, GPT and Claude, for brainstorming and for thought partnership, you know, especially for individuals you know that are boots on the ground, because truly, you know, it gives them that opportunity to just think a little bit more clearly. You know, they can articulate things, you know, a bit more concisely, when they've had a space, you know, to play it out. Rather than, Oh, I'm sitting in a meeting with my boss, and I have to come up with something, you know, it's like, they can prep, they can plan, they can have a little fun, you know, be a little bit a bit more of themselves, you know, in that space, you know. And then they can come to the table with, Okay, I've thought about it. Here's my recommendation, here's my solution, and then you give them a little boost of what it feels like to also be in a leadership role as well.
Chris DuBois 9:10
Wondering, too, have you worked with any clients, or, I guess, even internally, for for yourself, where you've set up like a like a CEO GPT, where it's like, has all the thoughts and decision making philosophies of the founder, so that the team can just use that instead of, you know, going having to book meetings.
Leah Leaves 9:30
Yes, ish. So what we did is, what we did first, was we built, we essentially did all that, where we took everything out of my head and put it onto paper. And that's what our actual guidebook is for all of our operations professionals. It's called the alder approach guidebook. And so it takes all of my thought leadership, you know? It takes all of my concepts, all of my ideas, all of my know how and and how I think through different problems and solutions. For agency owners and their teams and, and we really productized it into something that the team can then use, you know, for whatever problem that they're handling within an agency, whether it's in HR, finance, recruiting, service, delivery, you name it, you know, it covers the whole gamut. And, we had this for a while in different narrations, until we had then more with AI. We created that bot that all their approach bot, and so now it still has that same feeling you're talking with an experienced CEO and also visionary and integrator combined. So you get all of that, know how, all of that expertise, you know, and and you can kind of riff with them, you know, in the bot as well,
Chris DuBois 10:49
right? Have you found that's been a helpful for the team?
Leah Leaves 10:52
Oh yes, yeah, multiple times we've gotten the feedback, you know, that they really appreciated it, you know. And the nice thing about it is that, of course, since we're working with operators, you know, they'll always have some feedback. They'll say, like, Oh, this is great. And, you know, here's this other idea of, like, I'd love to see this other piece, you know, or it didn't quite give me what I was expecting here, you know, is that accurate? Yeah, so, so we definitely got a lot of feedback, and have improved it over time. Yeah, yeah.
Chris DuBois 11:19
It's one of, one of the things about working with so many operators, you're probably getting ideas just all over the place to be,
Leah Leaves 11:28
yes, yeah, it's awesome.
Chris DuBois 11:32
So as you do look at the founder trying to step back from the day to day, what are some of the way, like, I don't know, systems that you should be installing in order to maintain, like accountability and ownership with the team, so that people are taking picking stuff up and running with it, rather than needing to pull the founder back in the weeds. Yeah.
Leah Leaves 11:49
So it again, goes back to a lot making sure that the team actually knows who's responsible for what and who can make what type of decisions. So we go through some basics, like an accountability chart, like, do you have it actually documented, who sits in what seat, you know, and and also the responsibility is what things you know may overlap from seat to seat you know? And then how do they interact? So, like a simple decision tree, you know, if a client you know comes to, for example, an account or a project manager and is unhappy. Can they make a decision to over service you know, that client on their own? Do they have to escalate it to their manager? Do they have to fill out an internal report like you could definitely build a lot of systems and processes and SOPs, you know, to support all of that. But at the root of it is, what can they decide on their own first, just give them a really, really clear decision tree of if this, then that you know, and and then once you have some of those basics defined, then the owner can start actually stepping back, slowly but surely. So we've done this before, and I hate to admit it, but it's true. We've done this before where we've had incidents where we've just ripped agency owners, you know, out of the day to day too quickly, you know. And there's been absolute mutiny from the team, you know. And not because we didn't set up those systems, you know, ahead of time. It was, again, that psychological safety factor, you know, they were just so used to that person, that owner, being there on a day to day basis, that it felt like a void, you know, when they weren't, you know. So we had to systematically go through and say, Okay, here's the accountability chart, here's the decision tree, here's what it means. Let's roll it out slowly but surely. Then all of a sudden, you're starting to make the decisions team members you know, not the owner, you know, and give them a few practice reps, essentially, you know. And then over a period of a month, three months, six months, you see that the owner and their calendar in particular, this is, you know, one of the biggest tools that any owner can use to know where you know their time is truly being spent. And are they in the right seat, you know, is that over that period of time where you're instituting these, this new culture, essentially, you know, of the team taking ownership is the owner's calendar starts going from 100% like operations, to 30% to 50% 50 and then, you know, 30% and It goes down, you know, and then it gets filled up with more of the strategic work, you know. So because we want to get the owners, you know, out of the operation seat, like at the end of the day, they're not bad leaders, you know, they're not bad people. They're just in the wrong seat, you know. So we've got to get them out of those operations, out of the delivery roles, out of finance, out of, you know, HR, you name it that it systematically go through and kind of chip away at it, yeah. And so by doing so, you can fill in with the right people, with the team members that actually are responsible for those seats. So let me see you know that again, the basics of getting, you know, out of the. Owner, operator, you know, conundrum. You know that that cycle, you know, of despair for a lot of owners, you know, is by instituting like, accountability structure, ownership structure, decision making, you know, matrixes you know, and matrices you know, and trees, things like that. It goes back to like, why I keep saying the basics, but not everybody sees that as the most straightforward path.
Chris DuBois 15:26
And so like, you can see how it's going to be hard for the team, right? Like that psychological safety is definitely a huge thing. I think. What? What about the founder? Because I know a lot of founders who are like, Man, I'd love to get out of the day to day. But then as soon as they start having to relinquish some control, it's like they they kind of fall back into their old ways, because now they're not feeling good about it. How do you help them with just knowing? Like, hey, you if you want to grow the business, you're going to have to go focus on other things. So like, this is one of the trade offs you have to make right now. Like, how do you get them to feel okay with that. And obviously the slow roll might be the part of the solution. But, like, yeah, what are you doing in in that regard?
Leah Leaves 16:09
It's a great point, because we call those the reluctant gatekeepers. In particular, we have, you know, four agency owner types, you know, that we typically work with and and that I see time and again, but one of them, in particular, that we see, especially with smaller, remote, digital marketing, advertising creative agencies, is that reluctant gatekeeper where they feel so responsible, you know, for the quality of service, for the quality of you know, the production, that even though the systems are there, maybe the team Is there as well, and like actively working toward, you know, that ownership of their roles and responsibilities that the owner can't quite get out of the way, you know, and, and you're right, it goes back to that, that psychological safety for them, you know? Because what we find is, yes, the slow role, for sure, is a part of the solution. Another big part, you know is, I'll be honest, playing into their bright, shining object syndrome is that they have to have something else that they are excited to do that is not delivery, that is not in operations, you know, because that is what they got stuck in, and that's what they know. But it's not actually what started them, you know, in this business, in the first place, you know, it's not what really excites them. You know, more often than not, it's getting into more of those marketing seats, the sales seats, you know. It's getting into expansion, you know, and exploring other verticals. You know. It, it's absolutely giving them the space to explore those bright, shiny objects that I know most operators are going to be groaning, you know, when they listen to this, because they're like, oh God, don't, don't tell them to go into the light. You know, it's like, yes, no, we want them absolutely to do that, because it gives the owner, you know, something to focus on, something to thrive with, you know, and and to actually help lead the the agency you know, even faster, you know, and with more velocity, because that energy that they bring, you know, of being excited about something again, rather than like, Oh, I'm bogged down with all of this, and I'm just, you know, so heavy with the weight and burden, you know, of this company. It's like the energy flows from the top, it really does. And how you show up matters remotely, or in person, or hybrid, or like any variation, you know, of the above, you know. And so when they have something that they're working on that they can share with others, you know, and get excited about, you know, that helps bolster the team to be excited about what they're doing as well, you know, and probably bring in other creative ideas, you know. So, yeah, definitely take it. Take it slow and steady and be really firm. You know that, like we have deadlines along the way. Nope, you're out of this. Oh, you're out of that. Okay, what are you replacing it with? Right? Because, when we look at again, like the owner's calendar, and we talk about shifting them out of delivery operations, like all that kind of stuff, if they don't have something to fill it up with again, and genuinely, some of that could just be, are you filling it up with more family time? Are you filling it up with more structure in your personal life? Are you filling it up with, Oh, you have a side hustle that you want to explore, that you got really excited about, and has nothing to do with the agency world. It could be something not related to the agency, but it has to be something that they are personally invested in and excited about, you know, and and, yes, even better, if it is related to the agency, you know, and they're expanding, you know, services, you know, they're exploring new partnerships, you know, they're starting their own podcast, you know, and getting out there, you know, it's really about finding, you know, what sparks them again, You know, and then giving them that focus, you know, back over there, right?
Chris DuBois 19:45
Yeah, there's a lot of similarities to, like, when you if you lose someone or you have a breakup, right? Filling your time so that you're not just sitting there dwelling on that one thing. It's like, otherwise you will just full. I mean, man, all right, probably. Terrible example, because, like, I was gonna say, so you don't grieve, like, just spend all that time grieving. Grieving is important. Everyone. Go talk to your therapist like it is. It is important, but you're not necessarily always overwhelmed. So probably a bad example. But I'm gonna keep it anyways, the what, besides the calendar?
Leah Leaves 20:17
Well, yeah, if I may, jump in it, actually, it lines up with a rule of thumb, you know, a heuristic that, you know, I heard from Leila hormozi ages ago. You know that absolutely, when something does happen, you know, like, let's say you are out of delivery finally, and, and as an agency owner, like you're sitting there and going, oh my god, what I do with myself, even if you have something scheduled out, you know, and but you're still sitting in the realization that you're not what is holding the agency together anymore. You're not the sole individual that everybody is relying on. And like that can be really scary and really freeing at the same time. And so this heuristic is you need to take 24 hours, give yourself that 24 hours, let yourself sob about it. Let yourself, you know, grieve about it. Let yourself, you know, feel like, oh, man, they don't need me anymore, you know. And what am I going to do with myself? And and pull your hair out, do whatever you need to do for 24 hours, then your 24 hours are up. Great. Move on. Okay, you got things scheduled, you know. And, and so, yeah, still give yourself that time to grieve, you know, naturally, you are shedding an old identity, you know, as this individual that everybody relies on to, oh, now you are this leader, you know, everybody aspires, you know, to to work with, you know, so, so, yeah, definitely agree, though, you know, like, take that time, but give yourself, you know, a container for it. Give yourself a time for it, and then yeah, move on.
Chris DuBois 21:41
Yeah, that was one of the as I was working through like, different messaging things for my own business, I wanted to highlight that, like, I want agencies to be able to generate their own leads without agency like, agency owner heroics. But in talking to a couple agency owners, I realized, like, they didn't say this, but like, they like to be in the hero, right? Like there's, there's like, ego attached to, like, being the one that when you can come in and save the day and everybody's gonna praise you, and they're so happy you're there. And so, yeah, that is a hard thing to kind of shift from when, when handing all that off. And so
Leah Leaves 22:15
this, yeah, oh yeah. Honestly, it's the same for operators. I mean, we talk all about getting the owner out of operations, you know. But then you also have to look at the operator that is sitting in that seat, you know, and make sure that they're not doing the same thing to themselves, because then you're building the same bottleneck. You're building the same fault point in the agency, you know, which is a detriment, you know, to to any agency that wants to actually grow and scale, you know, so, so we really make sure that our operations professionals are doing what's best for the agency, like what's best for the business, not what's best for themselves. Like, they have to be focused holistically on, what are the systems and strategies, you know, that are going to make this scalable? You know, not what is going to put me in the limelight. So, yeah, anybody that sits in that seat, you got to be really careful with
Chris DuBois 23:04
that guilty of that when running an agency, Yeah, which one of my current company values is no martyrs, no kings, where we're not going to be sacrificing ourselves for the sake of anything like we work together to accomplish the mission. And then the like, anyone can have an idea. There is no King who's ruling from the top saying, this is everything that has happened. It's someone has an idea. You can run with it. Let's go. Shifted the Yeah, shifted that mindset a bit. But I want to go back to the calendar piece of this. So, like, so that is one way to know that the founder is actually stepping out of this of the day to day and everything like, are there other metrics, I guess, that you're looking for?
Leah Leaves 23:46
Yeah, another big one, it honestly is client delivery is consistent, so you are on track, you know, with timelines, deadlines, budgets, you name it, so it is working like clockwork. You can have flexibility. You know, within the scope, you can have flexibility within the engagements, you know, and, and there's always, there's always going to be edge cases, you know, like, what happens, you know, in client delivery, but honestly, if 80, 90% of it is consistent, like, boom, then, like, you're running a solid, scalable agency, you know, that can continue to grow. So that's a really big one as well. So you've got the owner's calendar, you've got client delivery, and then you've also got stable margins, right? So you're looking, I'm talking about, like, gross profit margin, net profit margin, even talking about, like, not just margins, but when you're looking at your P, L, like looking at your revenue, you know that you don't have these massive spikes, you know, or dips that things are over time. Let's say like you're looking at, like, I'd say a quarterly you know basis, like a 90 day, you know, rolling you know basis that it's fairly average, you know, or it's fairly consistent in its growth trajectory. Or, honestly, for some agencies, in 2025, I hate to say it, but that is consistently declining. You. As well, rather than cratering. But there is when some level of consistency, when you start to look at a slightly wider lens of the agency, but having that stability and that consistency in your numbers is so crucial to show that what you've been building is actually sustainable and working, and is going to be then scalable as well. If you've got really, really big spikes, or you've got really, really big dips, and this is something that I see a lot of agency owners do, that I want to flag, is they will say, Oh, but it was because of this. Oh, but it was because of that. And they explain it away. I don't care. I do not care what happened to that one month that is a red flag that you've got to double down on fixing whatever that issue was at the root of to make a solution for, because that is going to cause massive, massive stress in the business, not just for the owner. I mean, the owner is going to feel it probably 100 times, you know, more than any of the team members, because they're looking at those numbers, you know, constantly. But again, that energetic frequency, you know, that the owner carries of those spikes in the dips that filters out to the rest of the team, you know. So if you've got stable margins, if you've got consistent client delivery, and you've got a solid, stable calendar for the owner as well, that is more in strategy than it is in OPS, then those are some of the top metrics that we look for. Like we have a whole scorecard system that we work on with every agency to identify their most important categories of leading and lagging indicators, and we narrow it down as much as we humanly possible, like we have a few that we're always looking across all of them, but we give them some flexibility on what's special to them, but we make sure that we are tracking you know, things like, again, client delivery, we're tracking, you know, the owner's time, even that they may not like that, you know, but it's true, because it signals a lot of the health of the company, you know. And then those margins, and if, if everybody was looking at their margins over a 3060, 90 in a day period, rather than just the day to day, right? Not just like, the oh, I'm jumping into the bank account and seeing what's going in, what's coming out, you know, it's, oh, actually, I'm looking holistically at the business, you know. And oh, we are consistently growing, or, Ooh, okay, we're plateauing, you know. And what do we need to fix, you know, in, you know, our sales pipeline, you know, our marketing engine, you know, to improve that you know, so it gives you more of that clarity of what to work on
Chris DuBois 27:44
next, right? So when you are like, as a fractional ops partner, you're going into an organization for the first time. What are those other metrics that you're looking at? Just even know where to start? Yeah.
Leah Leaves 27:56
So of course, you're looking at, like, net profit margin, gross profit margin. Those are two of the biggest, you know, we're again, kind of reiterate some of the same things, you know, but looking at, like the the consistent delivery, you know, because I know that, you know, people want to look at, you know, capacity planning and forecasting, and you really have to have some other fundamentals first, like you have to have, for example, like, time tracking before you can really double down on, you know, what does resource management and capacity planning look like? So we look at, you know, basics, you know, like, are we hitting our deadlines? Yes or no. Like, that's a, that's a black or white. You know, it's a very easy indicator to see. Like, are you in the green or are you in the red? You know, there's, there's no ambivalence there, you know, whereas there can be a lot of explanation with all of these other numbers, but we're looking for a lot of the as much as we possibly can. We're looking at more of those leading indicators, you know, of the activities that the team can own as well. You know. So how many touch points you know, do they have with the client? You know, rather than, while we do look for things like CSAT client satisfaction score or net promoter score, of course, you know, those are really important as well. Those are still lagging, you know. So we need to front load a lot of the scorecards with some of the leading indicators, like activity based trackers, you know. So what can we control ourselves, like touch points, you know, with the client, you know, like making sure that we are also from a financial perspective, how much are you putting in your vault every month? How much are you saving? How much are you investing, you know, back into the company, not just, Oh, what is that net profit margin at the end of the month, you know? Or for most you know people, you're not getting those numbers reconciled until the middle of next month, so you're constantly behind the eight ball. You know, with those numbers, that's why we say, like, zoom out a little bit with some of those, those lagging, but the leading. We want to look at again, what activities can we really lean into, you know, for each individual role in each individual department?
Chris DuBois 29:58
Yeah. And then what's the 8020 of those? Like, if you had to to pick the few things to fix that would would have the most impact for everything else. Where would you start?
Leah Leaves 30:10
So what I would be looking for? I think it's really important for agencies to know their revenue goals. And I think that is important because that that draws them forward and gives them something big to look forward to, but equal and opposite is their net profit. So this is looking at the P and L, you know, at the top and the bottom. So you want to look at your revenue, because you can control more of the activities that impact, you know, your revenue number, for example, in your marketing and your sales efforts. So revenue is big one. Obviously, net profit margin is the second biggest one. The other one that I would say every agency needs to know off the top of their head, honestly, is their client retention and churn rate. And this is so critical, because I can't tell you how many agency owners that we've worked with that have this feeling that something isn't going right, you know, and this feeling, you know, that they are losing clients, and when they look at the data, it paints a very different picture. You know, we have some agencies that have a 95% retention rate, which is insane. It I mean, they've been such an amazing job. The quality is through the roof, and they are constantly improving and gaining more clients. You need to add to that mix, you know, we have others. You know that they have stepped so far, you know, away from their scorecards, you know, and metrics and their data component of their business is really lacking, and so they feel like, oh, yeah, you know, I trust my team, you know. I trust, you know, that things are going well. And then you look at the data, you know, and they have a 60% retention rate, and they're not gaining as many clients as they need to replace, let alone actually grow. So the retention and churn rates are incredibly, incredibly insightful for every agency owner to know, and very easy to track. Honestly, this is a very black or white kind of number that you can look at as well. The other one similarly that we like to look at is the team retention rate and churn rate, you know, because this is very impactful for agency owners that, again, have more of the feelings, you know, based decision making frameworks, you know, where they're just like, you know, this, the sky is falling, you know, the world is crumbling, you know, because I had one person leave, You know, and it's a well, one person over three years, you know, when your other you know, eight people you know have stayed with you like, let's keep this in perspective, you know, versus you know others where we worked with agency owners, I can't even tell you the churn rate you know of their team members, because it's like nails on a chalkboard. To me, it was so high and it was so upsetting, you know, because they were just, they were enforcing this, like, turn and burn mentality within their own team, let alone, you know, with their within their own, you know, clients base as well. And so this can indicate a incredible, area for improvement if you have a high churn rate with your team, or turnover, as most people call it, but we just say churn as well. Keep it simple, but yeah, turnover, turn rate for your team, because it signals bigger issues and in the market, you know, for for your agency. So those are four that we're often looking at see that revenue, net profit margin, client retention, you know, client churn, you know. And then your team churn and retention rate as well.
Chris DuBois 33:48
The team retention is one that doesn't come up that often, like in conversations, but I'd read a stat at one point that, like agencies have, on average, a 30% team churn rate. And I needed, I needed to look, look at more of the sources, because I felt very high. But I've also talked some agencies that were higher than that, and it was just very surprising. But the like, I've had clients who that was a critical piece of the engagement was them saying, like, we don't want to get traded off to to multiple marketers. So like, find whoever is going to have the most longevity with your business. And like, we just want to work with them. And so, like, they had, obviously had an experience where that was yeah, that came up multiple times, yeah.
Leah Leaves 34:33
And I think once you know, you know some of those numbers as well. And then then you can benchmark them, you know, against other agencies. You can benchmark them against past performance for your own agency as well. Start getting the trends, then you kind of know where you're, where you sit. Then, I know I talked about again, like all kind of lagging indicators, again at performance, but these really inform your leading because one. Issue that we've seen with a lot of agency owners, especially when they're trying to build out, like activities based performance metrics, is that it throws badly at the wall. They're just coming up with stuff of like, Oh, it sounds good, but if you don't know the root issue that you're solving for, then you don't know what solution is actually going to work, you know. So identifying, you know, those four numbers, you know, and having those for every agency as the starting point, you know, then you can build off of them to fill in the rest of that scorecard with the leading indicators that are going to impact directly those lagging indicators,
Chris DuBois 35:38
yeah. So,
Leah Leaves 35:40
like, I just went down like an operator rabbit hole of like indicator. I've got
Chris DuBois 35:48
one more question for you before we get into like the final couple the what looking at 2026 What do you think is the biggest potential mistake that agencies could make in regards to their operations,
Leah Leaves 36:03
it will always come back to me. The number one issue that I've seen for years, and that continues to be the issue, is that they are still sitting in the operation seat. The owner is still trying to solve problems that they inherently have created themselves, not because they're bad people, you know, not because they're bad leaders, but because it's not the right seat for them, you know. So we still see this and and this comes to the table even with, you know, AI, you know, on, on the forefront, right, where we see the owners trying to solve, you know, problems, you know, with AI operations, you know that they just don't have the context or the capacity for because, again, it's just not the right seat for them. So they may be the AI visionary for their company, you know, and hold that seat in addition to being the owner, being, you know, the the CEO. You know, any other seats that they might be in as well, we still see some agency owners and like the Chief Strategy Officer seat, because they still like to play in the client strategy. So, but the actual operation seat, you know, for AI operations, for internal operations, for finance, for HR, for recruiting, for admin, for delivery operations, you name it. You know, they should not be in that seat period.
Chris DuBois 37:23
All right, last two questions. First one, what book do you recommend every agency owner should read?
Leah Leaves 37:31
Have a whole shelf just for agency owners that I recommend, but the one that I come back to time and again that really reflects, again, my stance on finding the right people for the right seats is buy back your time by Dan Martell really identifying where your strengths are. I mean, there's all kinds of books out there, like, who not how is another great one the book who itself is another one that reflects on this of once you find your zone of genius and your strengths that you can play off of for the better of the company, lean into that and build the systems delegate to the right other individuals for all those other seats, including the operation. So buy back your time. Has a lot of really practical guidance on how to do that, you know, as well as why it's so important to do that.
Chris DuBois 38:25
Yeah, yeah, that was a good book for this this year. Last question is that, where can people
Leah Leaves 38:34
find you? The main place people can find me is on LinkedIn, as I'm always on LinkedIn, like 24/7, so definitely hit me up with a direct message, reach out comment, post with me. Always happy to have a conversation off of LinkedIn. You can also find the company, Alder on Operation solutions. You can find us at our website, alderon enterprise.com, and then other places. You can find me or other podcasts. I have a whole playlist on Spotify of other podcasts that I've been on as well.
Chris DuBois 39:08
Awesome. We can get that linked up in the show notes as well. Well. Leah as always, great.
Leah Leaves 39:15
Chad likewise, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for letting me in. Kind of go down that operations rabbit hole for agencies.
Chris DuBois 39:20
Yeah, no, I'm glad you did this is good. That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on substack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai