Economic uncertainty is the new normal for businesses with inflation, evolving client expectations, and rapid technological disruption, agency leaders are finding that old growth strategies no longer guarantee future success. During a recent SoDA webinar, Miles Welch and Paul Kingsley of Milestone Advisory, Kevin Gibbons of Re:signal and Bethan Vincent of Open Velocity, explored what agency growth really looks like in this climate.
Here are their five key takeaways that can help your agency to recalibrate and refocus.
Growth slumps can be misleading. When you’re facing a period of challenging growth, it’s important to distinguish between a short-term external dip and a deeper internal problem. If client retention is strong but new business is lagging, it may be a temporary lull. But if major pitches and accounts are being lost, it’s time for a strategic rethink. Understanding this difference can shape everything from resourcing to repositioning.
Kevin advises that when it comes to working out what type of growth challenge you’re facing, take into account that “there's levels to it, and it's recognising when do you need to have a bit of faith and patience versus when do you actually need to act.”
It’s also important to take a step back every six to twelve months and review your business model and honestly assess what is working and what isn’t. Don’t wait until your back is up against the wall, get on the front foot and mitigate any potential problems before you get to that point.
As Miles says, “If we can take a step back and do that regular, six monthly review of the key parts of the business, checking for efficiency, performance and innovation, then it does help agencies to spot the areas that will make them more resilient so when times are tough they've got a better way of working through that.”
In tougher markets, margin isn’t just a finance metric, it’s your agency’s lifeline. This doesn’t mean looking at cost-cutting only. Agencies need to refocus on profitability by scaling what works, streamlining delivery, and doubling down on high-margin services.
To do this it's critical to ensure that all teams have access to honest, consistent, and shared information about products, services, costs, and resource allocation. Too often, time is wasted gathering data rather than acting on it, so make sure your data is easily accessible.
Take a strategic approach versus focusing on tactical margin management that involves straightforward actions like adjusting price or cutting costs. Strategic margin improvement requires breaking down silos, organising teams more efficiently, and focusing on high-value tasks so that you can be efficient in the broader sense.
Ensure your pricing reflects both margin goals and brand positioning, and aligns with client perceptions of value. Shifting from time-based to value-based pricing can ensure you are paid for outcomes, not effort.
Remember to factor in cost of acquisition as well as the commercial validity of a client, ensuring that you’re doing the right amount of work to earn the right amount of money, but also have a strategy for organic growth from existing clients where margins are attractive.
Of course, AI also has a key role to play in creating efficiencies, particularly in operational processes where automation can free up human time. But don’t just pay lip service to AI, really focus on use cases internally across different teams to establish where it can make things more efficient. See takeaway number 5 for more on AI.
Generic positioning makes selling harder. Agencies that clearly define their niche, whether by vertical, service, or audience, naturally communicate a sharper value proposition. This clarity accelerates sales cycles, strengthens client fit, and ensures alignment with your Ideal Client Profile (ICP). In today’s environment, ambiguity is expensive. A well defined positioning strategy doesn’t just win more business it ensures you attract clients who understand and value your approach.
“Too many agency websites look and sound the same,” said Miles. “You need to stop selling services and start selling solutions to a clear client problem.”
Positioning isn’t just about messaging, it’s a tool to help you run your agency more effectively. It guides how you deploy your resources and make decisions. Stay true to your positioning by focusing on the problems you are best placed to solve. That said, not every client needs to fall squarely in your sweet spot. There can be valid reasons to make exceptions like ease of delivery or reliable revenue, but they should be intentional, not reactive.
Aligning the business around one focused model brings cohesion across departments. When everyone is clear on who you serve and why, culture improves, energy lifts, and execution becomes sharper. It also brings clarity to recruitment, marketing, and sales: you know who to hire, how to market, and which opportunities to pursue.
Bethan advises, “Weak positioning starts with your service list. Strong positioning starts with your best customers. If you want to cut through, apply a structured lens to your current client base and ask who loves you and why? What (beyond just a service) are they hiring you to solve? What alternatives are they considering? How do they understand their problem and what a best-in-class solution looks like for solving it. This all requires actual insight, which can be gained through conversations with customers and prospects.
Map your strengths to the context that makes them valuable. That’s how you stop being interchangeable and start being the obvious choice. Get this right and you’re not just easier to buy from, you’re harder to compete with.”
A commercially literate team is a scalable one. When everyone understands how the business makes money and how they contribute to that, it shifts the culture from passive delivery to active ownership. Profit isn’t a dirty word. It’s what enables growth, fuels reinvestment, and creates opportunities for the whole team.
Too often commerciality is seen as the job of senior leaders only. But when teams understand core concepts like pricing, margin, and account growth, they make smarter decisions day-to-day. As Paul put it, “You can’t let commercial thinking sit only at the top. Everyone should understand how to negotiate, price, and grow accounts.”
Make revenue, performance, and sales part of the everyday conversation. Share KPIs. Explain why they matter. When people are in the loop, they’re better equipped to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, and spot opportunities.
“For us,” Kevin said, “having commercial agreements with our clients and strong KPIs is a good way to get our team centered around how we drive growth for what really matters for our clients.”
It’s not about turning everyone into a finance expert, it’s about creating a culture where commercial awareness underpins creativity, client service, and growth.
AI isn’t just a tool for client-facing innovation, it’s a catalyst for reinventing how your agency operates. The most strategic value may come not from building AI products for clients, but from using it internally to drive efficiency, scale delivery, and strengthen your service model.
From research and content creation to workflow automation and knowledge management, AI can reduce operational costs without compromising quality. It can enable growth without increasing headcount. And that matters to clients, to investors, and to your own long-term sustainability.
“Most agencies are too focused on building AI tools for clients,” said Miles. “But there’s another opportunity in using AI internally to break the old link between growth and headcount. The ability to relook at processes and operations and capitalise on AI like never before. The way to approach this is to imagine you’re building the business again from scratch.”
The key is to take a practical, business-first view. What is AI doing that drives measurable value?
Used well, AI can improve client stickiness, streamline delivery, and open the door to recurring revenue models with higher margins. For example, when AI is used to iterate creative in collaboration with clients, it enhances the outcome, it doesn’t replace the creative process.
That said, innovation and adoption are very different. While AI innovation is moving fast, adoption is still lagging.Agencies have a key role to play in bridging that gap, helping clients understand where AI adds real value to their marketing efforts and how it fits into their world.
As Kevin says, “For us, it's being able to adapt to the technology that's on the market, but be transparent with clients over how we can use it, and then it's up to them in terms of how we would tailor that for them.”
And internally, if AI is helping you build a smarter, more profitable agency model, it’s not just good for business, it can also make you more attractive to investors. But as Paul cautions, “Acquirers' heads are not being turned and the multiples are not being uplifted just for incorporating AI into your narrative.”
What counts is substance over spin. Strategic AI use is about results not rhetoric.
In uncertain times like these, agencies don’t need more complexity. They need clarity. Focused positioning, commercial alignment, and smart use of technology are not just nice-to-haves, they’re essential. The agencies that survive won’t be the ones that do the most, but the ones that do the most of what works.
As Bethan noted in closing, “Strategy isn’t about doing more, it’s about choosing what not to do. Focus and efficiency aren’t just buzzwords. They’re survival strategies.”
