Fitness: Building your Agency’s Operational Muscle

Agencies often grow in fits and bursts with a new client win, another hire, bigger projects. But without the right systems and processes, growth quickly turns into chaos. Deadlines slip, delivery relies on heroics, and founders find themselves dragged back into every detail. The alternative scenario is stagnated growth. You might be a founder that craves a different type of business, but a lack of systems and processes is holding you back. 

At The Agency Adventure, we call this pillar Fitness. It’s about the operational strength that allows your agency to deliver consistently, improve profitability, and scale (if that’s what you want) without burning out your best people.

What we mean by Fitness

Fitness isn’t about rigid bureaucracy or over-engineering. In fact, ‘simple not easy’ is one of our values! Instead, it’s about putting repeatable systems in place so your agency can perform reliably. That might include:

• A structured onboarding process that sets clients and teams up for success from day one.

• Standard operating procedures (SOPs) that capture your way of working without stifling creativity.

• Project management tools and processes that keep delivery on track.

• Clear documentation so knowledge lives in the business, not just in people’s heads.

  
  

When your Fitness is strong, the agency doesn’t depend on individual heroics (or solely on you as a founder). Work runs smoothly, clients see consistent quality, and founders can step back knowing the wheels won’t fall off.

Why Fitness matters

Agencies without Fitness often feel stuck in firefighting mode. Growth feels fragile, margins erode, and quality dips as the team stretches themselves too thin.

Claire Hutchings, one of our Guides, shared her experience of running her agency:

“Every project felt like a scramble as we were reinventing the wheel every time. By the time we were a team of five, how I operated alone and as a smaller team just wasn’t maintainable. I hired an Ops Manager, my first non-billable hire and once we invested in proper processes, everything changed. Delivery became calmer, clients were happier, and profitability improved.”

Agencies with a strong Fitness pillar not only scale more smoothly, they also become more valuable. Buyers and investors look for operational strength because it shows the business can thrive without being reliant on one or two key people. 

The founder’s challenge

For many creative leaders, systems feel unglamorous compared to the excitement of new ideas or client wins. But Fitness is what turns your ambition into reality.

As one Chris Bantock, one of our Guides and founder of The Agency Adventure said:

“Fitness doesn’t kill creativity. It creates the space for it. When the basics are under control, teams have the freedom to focus on doing great work.”

Questions to consider

If you’re wondering whether your agency’s Fitness is strong enough, ask yourself:

• Could a new hire understand how to deliver a project without relying on memory or guesswork?

• Do projects run consistently, or does every deadline require heroics?

• Are your processes built to scale, or are they patched together as you go?

  
  

Next steps

We built a diagnostic tool based on our Your Agency of the Future framework. It allows agency leaders to understand how strong their Fitness pillar is compared to the other elements of their business. It shows whether your systems are supporting growth or holding you back.

Take the diagnostic today and see your Fitness score.

Get involved

We’re interviewing founders about how they’ve strengthened their operational muscle, from introducing processes to shifting culture around delivery. If you’d like to share your story, we’d love to hear from you.