It is common to refer to an agency by its size. For example, “we’re a $1 million agency” or “we’re a 20-person agency.”
Many agency owners I talk with will, in turn, set goals based on size, like “I want to build a 7-figure agency” or “I don’t ever want to have more than 5 employees.”
Revenue and headcount don’t tell the full story, however, and setting objectives based on “at least” or “not more than” can lead to less desirable outcomes.
I’ll discuss this more a bit later in this week’s newsletter — and what you should do instead — but let’s look at what Jen has rounded up for us this week first.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Weekly Roundup
Below are some articles, blog posts, podcasts, and videos that we came across during the past week or so that provide useful perspective and information for PR and marketing agency owners. While we don’t necessarily endorse all of the views expressed in these links, we think they are worth your time.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Latest from SAGA
- How to get your team the mentorship they need (Agency Leadership Podcast)
Articles & Blog Posts
- 19 predictions for agencies in 2030, from agency industry veteran Karl Sakas in 2025 (Sakas and Company)
- How to Establish Your Agency’s Authority in a New Business Pitch (The Sutter Company)
- Two Prospecting Objections That Stifle Agencies—And How to Overcome Them (RSW/US)
- Should You Entertain That Offer? (Punctuation)
- Are You Leading Your Clients or Are They Leading You? (Bureau of Digital)
- What’s in your wake? (Anchor Advisors)
Podcast Episodes
- Hustle Culture: Can You Productivity Your Way to Success? (Working/Broken)
- What You Need to Know to Become a Solo PR Pro in 2025 (That Solo Life)
- 10 Reasons a Buyer Might Want Your Firm (2Bobs)
- Psychology-Driven Marketing: Building Trust for Long-Term Growth with Rai Cornell (The Digital Agency Show)
- Why Most Reporting Systems Fail, & What to Do Instead, with Ben Zittlau (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- Senior Leaders Doubt Communicators’ Abilities (For Immediate Release)
- Unlock Revenue with Strategic Alliances, with Jarrod Lopiccolo (The Innovative Agency)
- The Insider Recipe for Video Success, with Ben Amos (Building Your Leader Brand)
Videos
- Agency Mythbusters? Take One (Bureau of Digital)
- Writing a book to get clients (special guest Henry DeVries): Agency Q&A with Karl Sakas (Sakas and Company)
- Continual Improvement (Agency Management Institute)
AI in focus
- How Communicators Must Adapt to AI Search Results (Spin Sucks)
- A PR pro’s guide to AI privacy: Protecting client data in the age of AI (PR Daily)
Setting the right goals for your agency
I like to call agency revenue and headcount “cocktail party metrics.” They’re the kind of thing that owners might use when they’re puffing up for peers or prospects.
But the reality is that they are very misleading. I can point to plenty of owners who have high revenue and headcount who are miserable and not making anywhere near the money you would think.
At the same time, there are owners who hold themselves from the level of happiness and success they could achieve by setting arbitrary limits on one of these metrics.
Let’s start with revenue. Revenue is not the same as profits. While you can put revenue in your business bank account, only profits hit your own wallet.
And while profit generally goes up when revenue does, it’s not a given and rarely tracks on a 1:1 basis. So you might double revenue but only add 50% (or less) to your profits available to take home as the owner.
Similarly, larger teams don’t always mean more money. But smaller teams don’t necessarily mean less headaches for the owner, either.
As you add to your headcount, your role as an owner shifts and the nature of your HR problems likely changes. But my experience is that having 5 or 25 employees isn’t all that different — it’s just that the specific challenges you need to deal with as an owner change.
Rather than setting minimum or maximum goals using revenue or headcount as a yardstick, you should focus on your personal goals.
As I always emphasize, there is no point in taking on all of the risk and stress of being a business owner unless your agency is giving you what you want.
That means your goals should be based on how much you make (individually), how much work you do, your satisfaction from the work that you personally undertake, and any other benefits you want to get from entrepreneurship.
The next time you hear an agency owner bragging about revenue or headcount, remind yourself that they may or may not be getting what they really want from their business.
You should also recognize that what you want may be different from their own personal goals.
Stop measuring against cocktail party metrics and following pre-packaged advice on how to get to that “next level” that you are “supposed” to reach for.
Instead, set goals based on what your business is doing for you.
