Becoming Aware of How Your Agency Is Wasting Away Its Margins

Reinventing Your Agency
Written By Brian Kessman

Let’s eliminate all the ways your agency is wasting away its margins.

“Waste” is anything that prevents or slows value delivery to your clients. It costs you time, weakens client relationships, and frustrates employees. Once you know what to look for, you’ll see it everywhere. It costs you time, weakens client relationships, and frustrates employees.

A few common forms of waste I see in agencies are:

  • Excess or redundant meetings

  • Waiting time for internal or client approval on work

  • Multiple revisions to work

  • Creating overly polished work too early in the creative process

  • Creating work that doesn’t get approved or used

  • Delays and loss of knowledge during handoffs

  • Manual duplication of information in different tools

You won’t be able to eliminate all waste, but we can certainly aim to minimize it.

Brian Kessman

Brian Kessman works with agency leaders who are ready to think differently and unlock their firm’s full growth potential.

As Lodestar's founder and principal consultant, Brian helps agencies move beyond billable hours and commoditized services to scalable, profitable models centered on client outcomes.

His strategies tackle the toughest agency growth challenges: redefining market position to attract premium clients; developing value-led pricing approaches to increase deal size; and creating diverse revenue streams for predictable income.

His programs deliver results. A full-service agency nearly doubled revenue from premium clients (from 36% to 73%) and increased overall income by 39%. A content agency grew a retainer deal size by 50%. Other firms boosted margins by optimizing their client mix, redesigning their offerings, and modernizing operations.

Brian is an inaugural member of the 4As Expert Network, and his transformative approach has been shared across the industry through presentations for Mirren, the 4A’s, AMIN, Magnet, Worldcom, and other top industry organizations. Combining hands-on and advisory expertise, he is a trusted partner to leadership teams looking to break free from outdated models and thrive in an era of disruption.

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