Resources: Why Your People Are the Product
- Claire Hutchings
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Every agency founder knows the cliché:
“Our people are our greatest asset.”
But in practice, people are often treated as a cost to be managed rather than the product you’re selling. Agencies aren’t successful because of their technology or assets. They thrive on the capability, creativity, and resilience of their teams.
At The Agency Adventure, we call this Resources. This is one of six pillars in our Your Agency of the Future framework which are the levers to pull to create a business that works for you. Resources are about how you build, support, and structure your team, because the health of your people is the health of your business.
What we mean by Resources
Resources cover more than headcount and organisational structure. It includes your culture, approach to wellbeing, how you balance permanent and freelance talent, and the way you structure your team for flexibility and growth. It’s about hiring for mindset, not just skills, and creating an environment where people can thrive rather than burn out.
When Resources are strong, your agency becomes resilient. You can flex to meet client demand, scale without constant firefighting, and retain brilliant people who want to stay and grow with you.
Why Resources matter
Agencies that neglect this pillar quickly feel the impact. They find their most talented people leave, taking knowledge with them. Those who don’t manage culture, wellbeing and client expectations may experience burnout or see that productivity dips when headcount rises.
We spoke to one founder recently who said:
“We spent years chasing growth and ended up with a team that was overworked, undervalued, and ready to quit. Only when we shifted focus to culture and wellbeing did we start to see real, sustainable growth. This combined with a hub and spoke model using contractors across more specialist services, meant we were able to flex and scale at pace, finally.”
There’s enough research to show that businesses that invest in their people see long-term payoff. And while remote working since Covid may have made agency socials harder, a strong culture attracts and retains top talent. A flexible model helps you weather unpredictable demand and when your team is engaged and supported, clients feel the difference.
The founder’s challenge
For many founders, Resources can feel intangible compared to sales numbers or financial targets. Culture is harder to measure than cash flow and it evolves without you even realising it as you scale and embed layers of leadership or heads of department. But the impact is no less real. Ignoring your Resources often means paying the price later in attrition, client dissatisfaction, and stalled growth.
As Tom Wilson, one of our Agency Adventure Guides explains:
“When founders ask why their growth feels painful, the answer is almost always a people problem. The systems and clients are rarely the real issue (in fact, they’re a symptom of failing Resources and Leadership); it's how you’ve built and supported the team delivering the work.”
Questions to consider
If you’re not sure how strong your Resources are, ask yourself:
Does your team have the flexibility they need to thrive?
Would you hire the same people again today, based on mindset as well as skills?
How well does your culture support diversity, wellbeing, and belonging?
Next steps
The Agency Adventure Diagnostic tool highlights how your Resources compare to the other pillars of a future-ready agency. It shows you whether your people structure is strong, or whether it’s an area that needs more attention.
Get involved
We’re speaking to agency founders about how they’ve built their teams, the cultures they’ve created, the lessons they’ve learned, and the structures that help them thrive. If you’d like to share your story, we’d love to hear from you.
