I’ve been a member of the Bureau of Digital for almost it’s entire existence. For those that don’t know, the Bureau of Digital is a community for digital marketing agencies around the world. In addition to their online Slack community, they host a number of events annually, many specifically geared towards agency owners, that are aimed towards creating a community and sharing of information about how to navigate agency life.
As per any Bureau gathering, I always enjoy seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Carl Smith, founder of the Bureau is exceptional at building community and as usual, this event lived up to that. In addition to the amazing content, we explored some interesting local favorite gathering spots and I found myself in moments of coaching impromptu craps and blackjack lessons as well as other agency owners. All in all it was a great time.
Here is a recap of some of the key speakers, a summary of what they spoke about, and my “hot take” on a core takeaway from each session.
Mike Koziol – Where do we go from here?
Summary: In challenging times, focus on building long-term value beyond daily operations by creating opportunities for your team and clients while appreciating the dream you’re already living. Embrace the unpredictability of the moment, knowing that resilience in tough cycles defines future success. Stick to fundamentals, retool when necessary, and stay true to your values. Balance being both a leader and operator, and build financial resilience through diversification. Adapt to new strategies without chasing distractions, and remember that leadership drives sales. Evolve your culture as the foundation of your business and seize opportunities from struggling competitors while staying optimistic and pragmatic.
Big Takeaway – As hard as it may be given day to day struggles, especially in the current climate, find ways to continually invest in building a better product and service for tomorrow, especially during tough times.
Natalie Kent – The Catalyst for Change: Mastering Brand to Propel Your Agency Forward
Summary: Growth inevitably brings challenges, and businesses face two paths: endure the discomfort of complexity or embrace the discomfort of change. A transformative brand is essential in navigating this, with the potential to pull your business forward or hold it back. The five key brand issues—confusion, duct-taped solutions, lack of consistency, an inflection point, and outdated branding—highlight the importance of clear, consistent messaging that reflects your strategic vision. Successful brands identify root issues, lead with courage, and align their visual identity with their mission to differentiate themselves. The ROI of good branding includes immediate wins like better sales and hiring, along with long-term community building and business growth. Transformation requires reevaluating strategic plans and being willing to commit to a vision that reflects where you want to go, not where you’ve been.
Big Takeaway – Take care of and honor your brand, it’s a critical component for a successful business.
Josh Barrett – The Legal Playbook for Top Agencies
Summary: The conversation emphasized the importance of creating a legal playbook for digital agencies to help navigate negotiations and manage risks effectively. Growth and complexity come with challenges, and building a system for handling legal terms is crucial. The session explored the importance of paid discovery, linking pricing to legal terms, building a negotiation grid, and managing scope creep to avoid unpaid work. Ultimately, a strategic approach to contracts, pricing, and client relationships can reduce anxiety and improve outcomes for agencies, especially when handling complex negotiations with larger organizations.
Big Takeaway – This conversation was particularly insightful with the idea of creating a best practices (aka Playbook) for how to negotiate and navigate your contracts. This can help set boundaries for what you’re willing to negotiate on as well as alleviate having a lawyer review every single contract red line and/or risk too much by avoiding controls outright.
Marty Ringlein – Velocity
Summary: This was a “lightning talk” that lasted about 15 minutes. The key to success lies in prioritizing speed and execution over perfection, focusing on moving quickly and iteratively to outpace competitors. Embrace risk and failure, as experimenting with new ideas often leads to breakthroughs despite occasional setbacks. Be proactive in identifying and acting on emerging trends, and challenge conventional thinking to find unique opportunities. Leverage foundational principles, such as lean startup methodology, to guide your approach, knowing that not all ventures will succeed, but those that do should deliver significant value. Balance founder mode with manager mode, ensuring hands-on involvement to drive innovation and growth.
Big Takeaway – Speed and the idea of failing fast are critcal because the there is a strong likelihood that a majority of your ideas will not work, or at least not work like you think they will.
Tom O’Neill – Moving Beyond Founder Led Sales
Summary: Creating a metrics-driven culture with Revenue Operations (RevOps) aligns teams across sales, marketing, delivery, and finance, fostering sustainable growth through streamlined processes and improved forecasting. Agencies often experience rapid growth followed by unpredictability in revenue and margin due to a lack of scalability. This involves aligning forecasts and budgets, setting unified goals, and measuring performance rigorously. Revenue is a flywheel, not just a funnel, and scaling involves not just acquiring new clients but also developing existing accounts. RevOps brings the same rigor to the sales process as is applied to service delivery, helping companies overcome stagnation and achieve long-term growth.
Big Takeaway – Your effort ratio between sales and delivery, in terms of setting up meaningful processes and infrastructure, is likely on a 10/90 ratio. The same level of rigor needs to be applied to sales that you’ve likely already applied to get your delivery processes, infrastructure, and measurements to their respective level.
Larry Waddell – Going First in AI Operations
Summary: To leverage AI within an agency, start small and expand from there. Use AI for tasks like synthesizing feedback from various sources into a unified note, creating first drafts for refining, and crafting outreach messages to save time. AI can also aggregate insights from multiple data points, such as analyzing SOWs. Recommended tools include Poe for accessing various models and Ideogram for image generation. Higher-level opportunities include automation, using LLMs in spreadsheets, and getting AI certified through the Marketing AI Institute. Additionally, instructing AI to take its time can lead to better processing and results.
Big Takeaway – AI is not a one step solution but is extremely powerful for saving time and refining ideas or otherwise validating and adding to theories and insights you currently have. Also, the tools and services are constantly evolving, what was the best yesterday, is likely not the best today.
Traci Schubert Barrett – The Art of Leadership
Summary: Traci emphasizes that leadership is an ongoing craft to master, requiring self-awareness, vulnerability, and balance. Two key reflective questions are: What is it like to be you? and What is it like to be on the other side of you? Great leaders lead themselves first by understanding their blind spots and addressing their fears and disbeliefs. Leadership, Barrett asserts, is a gift, not a reward, and great leaders dial back their egos, distributing power while maintaining authority. They also lead with clarity, ensuring communication gets through and building trust through empathy, competence, and character. Barrett highlights the importance of focusing on both results and relationships, with leadership being a constant challenge at every stage. Leaders should seek revelation in their role, seeing it as an opportunity to discover and leverage the strengths of others.
Big Takeaway – Great leaders build trust and create a safe environment for people to do their best work. Asking yourself “What do you want to feel like to be on the other side of you?” is a big actualization step to move in the direction of being the leader you need to be.
Robert Sfeir – All Your Projects are Snowflakes, and That’s Ok!
Summary: The emphasis on how you deliver is often more important than what you deliver. Inefficiency leads to poor customer experiences, wasted time, and lost money. Processes, while essential for efficiency, should be adaptable and not overly rigid. Remote work amplifies the need for discipline and human connection despite the lack of face-to-face interaction. Successful delivery requires aligning projects with the customer’s needs and empowering the team with clarity, autonomy, and understanding of the business strategy. In today’s age of AI, intentional collaboration and a shift from transactional to relational thinking—focusing on outcomes over outputs—are key. Teams should be taught to adapt rather than merely follow processes. Leadership is likened to conducting an orchestra, providing guidance but allowing room for individual experience and growth, including learning from failure.
Big Takeaway – Embrace the uniqueness of every project or client engagement, no single instance is the same as before (different team, different business, different client). Process should be a balance of structure and fluidity that focuses on the outcome and subsequent best path(s) to reach it.
Jenny Plant – Client Centric Account Growth
Summary: The text highlights the importance of shifting the mindset of account management from a sales-driven approach to one focused on guidance, growth, and long-term client relationships. Account managers play a key role in agency growth by identifying opportunities and addressing client needs beyond basic service. By moving from reactive service to proactive consultation and business relevance, agencies can elevate their value from mere service providers to strategic partners. Growth occurs when account managers co-create goals, communicate clear expectations, and have business-relevant conversations. This approach not only strengthens client retention but also drives predictable, scalable revenue. Cultural continuity and repeatable processes ensure that success isn’t dependent on individuals but on a structured, strategic approach that empowers teams and future-proofs the business.
Big Takeaway – In most cases, account managers are not setup for success in growing accounts because of combination of lacking the specific skills necessary, true empowerment and license, and process or client setup that allows for it.
Ryan Watson – Navigating Your Agency’s Lifecycle
Summary: Ryan’s talk outlines four key modes in the agency life cycle: Create Mode, where businesses focus on acquiring clients and avoiding non-productive activities, with an emphasis on understanding unit economics. Build Mode, where agencies, typically at the seven-figure mark, aim for profitability and sustainability by focusing on financial priorities like solvency, gross margin, cash reserves, and operating profit. A singular focus is crucial for solving one issue at a time. Grow Mode involves delegating responsibility and dividing the business into smaller, manageable parts, with clear accountability and incentives for “deputies.” Finally, Scale Mode offers flexibility in choosing different paths for scaling but is not mandatory for every agency. Each stage presents distinct challenges that require strategic financial and operational management to navigate effectively.
Big Takeaway – Be conscious of what mode your agency is currently at and the reality is that you can’t constantly be in Grow Mode. Embracing the current state of your agency’s lifecycle ensures that you take the necessary steps before moving onto another cycle and subsequent new priorities and activities.
All in all the speakers delivered actionable insights that are timely and relevant, particularly as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of agency life, and especially given the rough landscape of the past 2 years. From leadership to branding, operations to AI, the common thread across all sessions was clear—success comes from adaptability, intentionality, and continually investing in our teams and ourselves.
I left this event feeling inspired and ready to apply these takeaways, not only to my own business but to those I coach. I look forward to leveraging these insights in my work with agencies and how they will expand them even further.
What insight or takeaway most resonated with you? Send in your thoughts. Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Russel
“The Backboard”
Russel Dubree is a business coach that specifically focuses on digital marketing agencies to create their most ideal business by helping small marketing agencies attract better clients and build scalable systems, processes, and training to grow their teams. Ready to take your agency to the next level? Schedule an introductory call to discuss an opportunity for a complimentary coaching session.
