The Agency Obsession With “Big”
In the agency world, there’s a constant undercurrent of pressure to be servicing bigger clients, more famous clients, growing your team, and dealing with bigger budgets.
Every agency event I’ve ever been to is punctuated with the same questions:
How big is your team now?
Who are you working for?
These are almost always followed by the wankerish flex:
“We’ve got 30 people now.”
“We were working for Google.”
“McDonald’s, actually.”
It’s the same song every time.
Smoke, Mirrors, and Pretending to Be Big
About two years ago, I dealt with an agency that boasted over 50 people on its website.
I visited their office. There were fewer than 15 people. They told me they had 50 staff, but only a few come into the office
Companies House said they had nine employees.
Bravado and the pressure to appear big is a perennial problem in agency land. And I get why it happens. You need to look “global” to land the big contracts. So you use smoke and mirrors to get the contract, hoping the contract will then pay for the team you claimed to already have.
The One-Contract Death Trap
The real problem, as far as I see it, and I’ve seen a shocking number of agencies collapse overnight, is that competing for bigger brands, bigger teams, and bigger turnover pushes you into a one-way street: dependency on a single massive contract.
Maybe it’s £10m a year to run all the marketing for a large company.
Suddenly, you’ve got 30 staff: account managers, marketing execs, designers, videographers, SEO specialists, all servicing one client.
From the outside, it looks like success.
Huge turnover.
Lots of staff.
Fancy offices.
A big-name client.
What’s not to love?
One Decision Away From Collapse
I’ve never bought into this model. I think it’s flawed and very dangerous.
You are one marketing manager away from losing everything.
All it takes is a new hire deciding to change agency, or to bring things in-house, and suddenly you’ve got overheads you can’t pay for.
That’s not resilience. That’s gambling.
My Rule: No Client Over 5%
My personal rule is simple: I don’t want any single client to represent more than 5% of my turnover.
This proved to be very prudent during the 2019 pandemic. Yes, some clients closed forever. Others shut down their websites and businesses for the duration. But most stayed. A few even thrived.
I didn’t lose everything overnight.
Unsexy, Boring, and Sustainable
I’ll admit it: this isn’t a sexy pitch.
99% of my clients you will never have heard of. And that’s fine. There’s less competition bringing in this work because everyone else is chasing the big boys.
I generate income from over 100 businesses every month. Some pay very little, sometimes as low as £20 a month. Others pay thousands. Most sit somewhere in the middle.
Unsexy, but grounded.
Business Owners Have One Big Advantage: Time
I’ve always believed business owners should use the one luxury most employed people don’t have: time.
When you’re employed, you’re at the whim of your employer, and you probably operate in six-month chunks. As a business owner, you still don’t know what will happen in ten years, but you can hedge your bets and plan and play for growth in the long term.
By diversifying income, industry, and client size, you can scale up and down without risking everything in one go. Its slower but its safer.
Final Advice: If You Land a Whale, Plan Your Exit
If you’re running an agency and you’ve landed a whale, my advice is simple: get out while the going is good.
Don’t expect it to last forever.
It might be six months.
It might be ten years.
But unless you can land another five similar contracts to spread the risk, I’d be finding a buyer and exiting before the liabilities come home to roost.
Big clients are cool.
They’re also dangerous.
