Yes, it’s AI. Whether we’d actually work this well together is something we should find out.
The agency is doing good work. What comes next is less clear.
You want to grow. But too much new business may still depend on your relationships, your reputation and the time you can find for it.
Perhaps you are weighing a change in direction. Or trying to decide where to invest when the team is already stretched. You can see an opportunity, but you are not yet sure how to pursue it.
In an employee-owned agency, those choices carry a particular responsibility. You are making decisions about a business held for the people who work in it.
As an independent agency, you may be competing with better-resourced network agencies. Increasingly, you are also competing with clients who believe AI can do the work for them.
You have people around you. Even so, there may be questions you would welcome the chance to think through with someone outside the business, who understands agency life and has carried commercial responsibility themselves.
I have built agencies. And led them.
I was the second employee at a new WPP agency in London, established to handle the global Dell business. We grew to sixty people in six months. I served as Chief Strategy Officer.
At The Hut Group, I was Managing Director of a 200-person content production studio across five sites. I stepped in after the previous leadership team had gone, with the job of holding the business together as it became part of a larger group.
I also founded an agency with two partners, then spent nine years running my own consultancy. My clients included O2, Diageo, Dell, Microsoft, Unilever and NatWest.
More recently, I became CMO and a main-board director of a professional services business that received private equity investment. That relationship began with a cold email and a fixed-fee assignment. It grew as the work earned it.
A better decision.
Then help make it happen.
Someone to think with.
A candid conversation about the business you want to build. Space to test a decision before you commit to it, with someone who brings a commercial view and will challenge your thinking. You stay in charge.
Someone to build with.
Practical help to clarify your offer and build something prospective clients find useful. Then the targeting and follow-up that turn their interest into opportunities.
How interest becomes new business.
Agencies fight for attention. I help you win new clients by building what their market will come to you for, and the follow-up that turns the interest into work.
A useful webinar, briefing or programme gives prospective clients a reason to engage with your agency. That is the asset. But interest alone does not create a pipeline.
I call the work around it the Engine: reaching the right people, following up over time and giving sales and marketing a shared view of what is moving. The diagram shows how those parts fit together.
Your team keeps the asset, the processes and the reporting needed to run it after I leave.
Useful to the market. Accountable to the business.
Tetra Consulting
I built CPD webinars, podcasts and executive briefings around the buyers Tetra wanted to reach. The subjects connected to its services and gave salespeople a relevant reason to follow up.
When new business underperformed, my team took practical responsibility for it. The board formally agreed that responsibility.
The AWARE Index
I built an ongoing evidence programme on frontline harm: the human cost of public-facing work. AWARE is founded and funded by Reveal.
It connects what surveyed workers face with what their employer does about it and how they are faring afterwards. It recommends no particular intervention.
You may have a few questions.
“I’m not sure what help I need.”
That is a reasonable place to start. Tell me what you are trying to build, or the question you keep coming back to. We can explore whether there is something useful to work on together.
“Will this become another thing to manage?”
If we work together, we agree what I will take responsibility for and what I need from you and your team. The scope should fit the issue you want to address.
“Are you an employee ownership specialist?”
My experience is in leading agencies and building businesses. I bring that experience to the commercial and leadership questions you face. Advice on the trust itself belongs with your EOT specialists.
“What am I committing to?”
A first conversation. If there is a useful next step, we discuss it. Any work, responsibilities and fees are agreed before an engagement begins.
Bring one question you would like to think through.
One live question. Half an hour. My considered view.
A decision about growth, a new business problem or an opportunity you are unsure how to pursue. We will talk it through, and you can judge whether I understand your agency and whether we would work well together.
me@magnuswood.co.ukAlready received an email from me? You can simply reply.