Don't blame the band, fix the rhythm: why operations make or break agency growth
Photo by David Werbrouck on Unsplash
Your team is talented. Your clients are interesting. So why does every day feel like firefighting instead of building? When agencies hit scale, the problem isn't usually the people — it's the invisible infrastructure holding everything together. Or more accurately, the lack of it.
Lee Warcup, founder of Beat Agency and operational transformation expert with 18 years of agency experience, has seen this pattern play out countless times. Talented teams drowning in chaos. Leaders working twice as hard for diminishing returns. The culprit? Operations that never evolved beyond the startup phase.
In his conversation on That Moment podcast, Lee reveals how agencies can transform chaos into competitive advantage — and why the best operational fixes often come from the people already in the room.
The moment operations stopped being optional
Lee's revelation didn't come from a business school textbook. It came from watching creative agencies struggle with basics whilst managing their print production.
"I was the one managing them and helping them organize themselves," he explains. "There was a lot of technology, a lot of automation in print. And there was a lack of it within the agency world."
The disconnect was striking. Agencies delivering brilliant creative work couldn't organise their own processes. Communication channels broke down. Deliverables missed the mark. What they called "production management" back then would now be recognised as operations - but the term was barely used in creative industries.
Lee made a decisive move: he went in-house to become the glue. Not because agencies needed another project manager, but because they needed someone to marry creative thinking with systematic operations.
Change without context just causes stress
When asked about the classic founder move - announcing three new service lines, two new clients, and a shift to cross-functional teams via a 2am Slack message - Lee doesn't mince words.
"That's pretty classic. Change without context. That just causes stress."
The problem isn't ambition or agility. It's layering bombs without a map. When you dump multiple changes on a team simultaneously, you're not empowering them — you're overwhelming them.
Lee's prescription: reverse engineer it. Start with what matters most (the clients), get the team on that journey first, then build toward the other changes systematically. "If you don't get them on the journey, they're not going to buy into it. They're just going to see it as more work, more questions, more stress."
This principle underpins successful change management in professional services: communication isn't about informing people of decisions. It's about bringing them along on the reasoning.
When your senior person quits mid-project
Here's Lee's uncomfortable truth: "They didn't quit mid-project. They probably quit in their head about three months ago."
People don't just leave. Something else is going on. But the immediate crisis demands immediate action - and that means controlling the narrative externally whilst dealing with reality internally.
First priority: deliver for the client. Get a solid handover, move forward with confidence, and never let the client sense internal turmoil. "We need them to understand that we're still going to deliver. We've got it in hand and we're confident with it."
But here's where most agencies stop. Lee pushes further: "There needs to be an exit interview. We need to be prepared for some uncomfortable truths."
The person left for a reason you didn't see coming. That means something in your operations, culture, or leadership needs examining. And rushing to hire a replacement without understanding what went wrong? You'll likely repeat the mistake.
This approach to innovation in professional services recognises that operational excellence isn't just about efficiency — it's about creating environments where talented people want to stay.
The ghosting client scenario
A signed contract doesn't guarantee engagement. When a client goes silent after signing, Lee's diagnostic process reveals common operational gaps.
"How did you onboard them? Did you onboard them?" he asks. Because establishing communication lines, expectations, and timelines isn't optional — it's the foundation of client engagement strategies that actually work.
The simple intervention that many agencies skip: picking up the phone. "It's amazing how many agencies don't do that. And especially with the generational gap thing - not everyone likes to pick up the phone."
But before you even reach the ghosting stage, there's upstream work: qualifying the client properly. Understanding budgets. Establishing escalation points. These operational fundamentals prevent crises rather than just managing them.
When you become the bottleneck
The scenario plays out in agencies everywhere: the team keeps DMing the founder for decisions that were supposedly delegated. Lee diagnoses this as a cultural issue, not just a delegation failure.
"You become the bottleneck. There must be some form of culture here where everyone thinks it has to go through the owner, has to go through the founder."
The fix isn't delegation - it's changing how you respond. "Ask them. Well, what do you think? Don't just answer the question. Ask them what they think. And if they tell you the answer, brilliant. Say, well, go on and do it. You don't need my approval."
But here's the crucial part: it must be consistent and public. One-off encouragement doesn't change culture. Consistent coaching that others can observe does.
This approach to business transformation in professional services recognises that sustainable growth requires making yourself strategically redundant in day-to-day operations. Not because you're not valuable, but because your value should be in direction-setting, not decision-making for every small choice.
What swimming teaches about agency operations
Lee's background coaching swimmers reveals something crucial about high performance: "Sport at any level, especially high level, there's so many transferable skills from sport to business."
One particular insight stands out. Many agencies call themselves "a family" - but Lee references how Netflix deliberately positions their organisation as a high-performing sports team instead.
"There's unconditional love within a family, which will tolerate underperformance. If you've been in a sports team or a high-performance sports team, you'll know there's a togetherness there, but you also know you have to perform."
The swimming analogy goes deeper. Coaches structure training in 12-week cycles working backward from major events. But the best coaches adapt when their team is exhausted - they don't blindly follow the plan.
"You've got to understand and understand the people within the process. It's not just about perform, perform, perform, perform. You've got to take the people aspects into it as well."
This balance between structure and adaptation defines effective innovation in professional services.
The terrible stroke that wastes energy
Every sport has fundamentals that, when wrong, make everything harder. For swimming, it's technique. For agencies, it's process.
"If your technique is off, you're not going to build that speed. You're not going to build that agility," Lee explains. "You're just going to be spinning at an alarming rate, looking like you're busy and like you're going fast but completely knackered. You're going nowhere fast."
The agency equivalent? Throwing more time at broken processes. Layering complex tech stacks without fixing fundamentals. "You're throwing time in the bin. You're covering up cracks with resource rather than actually fixing the problem."
This insight matters for professional services profitability - because inefficiency compounds. Every hour thrown at a broken process is an hour not spent on billable work or business development.
Myth-busting: operations versus creativity
When challenged on whether operations kill creativity, Lee is emphatic: "Bad operations kills creativity. If you're drowning in admin, yeah, it kills creativity. Good operations create space to be creative."
The logic is straightforward. When you don't know what you're delivering, when you're constantly reworking things, when chaos reigns — that's what stifles creativity. Structure done well provides the foundation for creative freedom.
"If you think structure and process doesn't work, you've probably only seen it done badly."
Tools aren't the answer (usually)
The AI and technology conversation triggers a common agency mistake: assuming better tools solve operational problems.
"Better tools don't always improve things," Lee cautions. "Do you understand the people within the business and your processes? Do you understand what it is you deliver and how it works?"
His recommendation flips the typical approach: "The best people to tell you what's going wrong and what needs to improve are the people doing it. So talk to those people first. Understand what the nuances are, understand what they're struggling with, and then figure out what tools can fix that. Not the other way around."
This principle matters particularly now, as agencies rush toward AI adoption without understanding their fundamental operational needs.
People don't hate structure—they hate pointless structure
Another myth Lee dismantles: that people resist structure inherently. "People need to know where to be. People need to know what to do and how to do it."
The problem isn't structure — it's structure for structure's sake. "If you're just putting something in place to tick a box, it's probably the wrong thing to do."
The balance: provide foundational clarity (what's your role, how do you connect with others, what are the communication channels) whilst avoiding micromanagement. "You've got to find that balance between autonomy and structure."
The one thing to shift tomorrow
When pressed for the single most important action agency leaders can take, Lee's answer is deceptively simple: listen.
"There's a tendency for leaders within business to think they have to know all of the answers. The likelihood is you've got the answer in the room. You've got the people there that you need to listen to."
But he qualifies this carefully. Not Slack messages or stand-ups. "I'm talking about real conversation. Understand what the issues are."
From those conversations, you can make informed decisions based on actual data and insight. And crucially, "you don't have to do it on your own. Other people are experts. Let them do it."
Moving forward: architecture, not admin
The conversation with Lee Warcup reframes operations from necessary evil to competitive advantage. When agencies treat ops as merely admin, they miss the strategic opportunity: operations done well become the architecture that enables creativity, profitability, and sustainable growth.
The agencies that scale successfully aren't necessarily the most talented creatively - they're the ones who built operational foundations strong enough to support their ambitions. They're the ones who listened to their teams, fixed their fundamentals, and recognised that chaos isn't a sign of growth. It's a sign you've outgrown your old ways.
Ready to transform your agency operations from firefighting to growth-enabling?
Listen to the full episode with Lee Warcup and discover how the right operational foundation allows talented teams to focus on what they do best — whilst scaling profitably.
About Supo:
Supo provides people-first intelligence software for professional services firms, helping businesses maximize profit and motivate their people through powerful, AI-enabled business intelligence dashboards. By connecting over 500+ platforms and providing real-time data analysis, Supo helps firms make better data-driven decisions about their profit, projects, and people.
For more information about Supo: www.supo.co.uk
About Lee Warcup:
Lee Warcup is the founder of Beat, specialising in optimising agency operations for growth through people-first processes. With 18 years of agency experience, Lee has led major operational restructures, saved agencies over £150k through resource optimisation, and transformed chaotic studios into efficient operations. He partners with agencies to fix operational challenges, providing both hands-on implementation and strategic guidance for scaling.
For more information about Beat: www.beatagency.co.uk