The playbook
How to run an agency that keeps its margin.
Everything we install with clients, written down and open to read.
Finance
3 minWhy your agency is busy and still not profitable
The reason a fully booked agency still runs thin margins is almost never utilization. It is the price the work was sold at, and the hours nobody costed before the contract was signed.
Operations
3 minWhen to fire a client, and how to know before it costs you a year
A margin-based rule for deciding which accounts to re-price, re-scope or release, instead of waiting until a client becomes unpleasant enough to make the decision for you.
Acquisition
4 minHow to scale an agency past $100k a month when it has stopped moving
Why agencies stall near $100k a month, how to find which of the four constraints is actually binding, and the sequence that moves the ceiling instead of the workload.
Comparison
3 minAgency mastermind or one-to-one consulting: how to choose between them
Masterminds and consulting engagements solve different problems, and buying the wrong one is expensive in different ways. A revenue-based rule for deciding, from someone who sells one of them.
Comparison
3 minAgency coach or agency consultant: which one you actually need
The difference comes down to whether you already know which part of your business is broken, and that question has a cheap way to answer it before you sign anything.
Operations
5 minAgency utilization rate: the target, how to calculate it, and why 100% is a warning sign
What utilization rate a marketing agency should target, how to calculate billable utilization correctly, why the number most agencies track is wrong, and what to do when utilization is too high or too low.
Operations
4 minAgency pod structure: how to grow by cloning a unit instead of redesigning the org chart
What a delivery pod is, how to size one against real capacity, and how to use pod economics to know what the agency looks like at three or five pods before you spend anything getting there.
Pricing
3 minHow to price an agency retainer so it survives contact with delivery
A method for pricing agency retainers from costed delivery rather than market rates, including the capacity math, the margin floor, and how to re-price existing accounts without losing all of them.
Acquisition
3 minGetting the founder out of agency sales without the pipeline collapsing
The sequence for moving agency sales off the founder: what to document first, what to hand over in what order, and the realistic timeline before close rate recovers.
Pricing
2 minWhy agency growth eats margin, and how to price so it doesn't
Agencies lose margin as they grow because work is priced per outcome but delivered per hour. Here is how to build a costed delivery model that holds gross margin as revenue scales.
Operations
2 minThe agency operating cadence: what a weekly rhythm actually looks like
A weekly operating cadence is the meeting structure, owners, and numbers that let an agency spot a revenue or margin gap early enough to fix it. Here is the exact structure Hydra installs.
Finance
2 minAgency financial benchmarks: the numbers a healthy agency actually hits
Benchmark ranges for agency gross margin, payroll as a share of revenue, net profit, revenue per employee, and client concentration, with what to do when you are outside them.
Operations
3 minAgency capacity planning: how to know what one more client actually costs
How to build a capacity model for an agency, including realistic utilization targets, the hours-per-account calculation, and how to tell whether you need to hire before you sign.