The Design Community Hub

c/agency-management

8

jennifer_fisher•16d ago

Why does nobody talk about the founder who admits they are bad at managing people?

I had coffee with another agency owner last week in Austin. She straight up told me she runs a 15 person shop but has no idea how to give feedback without making people cry. She said 'I just hide in my office and hope they figure it out.' That stuck with me because I think a lot of us are faking it on the people side. Has anyone else had a founder actually admit they are weak at managing their team?

25

terry_mitchell•17d ago

Rant: A 19 year old intern called my agency 'dated' and I'm still mad 2 weeks later

She pointed out our client intake forms are all PDFs and said we look like a 2010 operation which stung because she was right after I counted 4 separate manual data entry steps that take my staff 45 minutes per new client is anyone else getting called out by young hires?

2

kellymurphy•17d ago

Can we talk about how project management tools actually got worse over time?

I remember when I started my agency 12 years ago, I used a whiteboard and sticky notes. It worked fine. Then we moved to Basecamp and it felt like magic. Fast forward to now, I've tried Monday, Asana, ClickUp, and every other thing out there. They promise to save time but I spend 2 hours a week just updating statuses and fighting with notifications. Last month I went back to a paper notebook for my personal tasks and I got more done in 3 days than I did with the software in a week. Has anyone else found that simpler systems just work better as your agency grows?

22

the_piper•20d ago

Vent: A senior partner told me to fire 3 underperformers and I waited too long

Last spring our biggest retainer client started bleeding hours and I had a senior partner at a Denver agency mixer tell me to cut the 3 people on that account who just weren't pulling their weight. I thought I could coach them up and kept them for 2 more months. By June we lost the client entirely, about $12k a month in revenue. Now I realize I was being nice instead of smart and it cost us big time. Has anyone else held onto weak team members way longer than they should have?

16

riley595•21d ago

Vent: Our campaign dashboard crashed mid-pitch to a $50k prospect in Austin

I was presenting our quarterly results to a big tech prospect last Tuesday when the whole dashboard went white. Turns out our hosting provider had a 47 minute outage right as I was showing them their competitor's ad spend. Had to switch to screenshots on my phone and make jokes about "offline mode" while the IT guy frantically rebooted servers in the background. Has anyone else had a demo totally fall apart at the worst possible moment?

31

sarah_johnson46•22d ago

Tried a flat fee model for 6 months and lost 30% of my profit

I switched all my retainer clients to flat monthly fees last January, thinking it'd simplify things, but ended up eating the cost on scope creep from two big accounts. Has anyone figured out a way to make flat fees work without getting burned on revisions?

8

felix478•22d ago

Back when I started, a senior account guy told me 'always bill by the hour'

I remember my first big client back in 2018. Old school agency owner named Dave pulled me aside and said NEVER do flat fees because you'll get screwed. So I billed hourly for 2 years. Turns out I was leaving money on the table big time. Example: a $3k flat fee project took me 40 hours but with hourly I only charged $2k. Switched to value-based pricing last year and my margins jumped from 30% to 55%. Anyone else break away from the traditional billing model and see way better results?

3

the_piper•22d ago

Client asked for a "rebrand" but meant a new font color

Had a call last week with a local coffee shop owner in Portland who said they wanted a full rebrand. I spent 3 days pulling together mood boards, competitor analysis, the whole deal. Get to the meeting and she just wanted to change the logo from dark brown to light brown. I charged her for the full package anyway since she didnt give me clear specs upfront. Has anyone else dealt with clients using fancy terms they dont actually understand?

3

tessawebb•25d ago

Pro tip: Found out 68% of agency clients leave because of poor communication, not bad work

I was reading a HubSpot study from last month and it hit me - we spend all this time obsessing over deliverables but most clients just want better check-ins. Switched to a weekly 5-minute video update and my retention rate jumped 20% in 3 months. Has anyone else tried ditching long email chains for quick async videos?

9

the_ben•26d ago

I finally learned the hard way about cheap project management software

Last year I thought I was being smart saving $40 a month by going with some no-name PM tool for my agency. Figured how different could it be, right? Big mistake. My team of 5 kept losing tasks and deadlines got buried in a cluttered interface. After 3 months I had to pay a freelancer 2 days to manually sort through everything and migrate us to a real system. Cost me about $600 in lost hours and that guy's fee. Wasted 3 months of productivity over $120. Has anyone else burned cash on a cheap tool that ended up costing way more in the long run?

25

lucas159•26d ago

Dropped $600 on a project management tool last month and it actually made things worse

I figured Monday.com would save us time on client updates, but after onboarding the whole team we're spending more hours clicking through automations than we ever did just sending emails. Anyone else have a tool that looked good on paper but backfired?

22

betty_ward•26d ago

Just realized most agencies screw up onboarding by overcomplicating it

I was looking back at our numbers last night from when we started 3 years ago here in Austin. We had a 40% drop off in the first 30 days for new clients. Turns out we were dumping too much info on them in the first week. Spreadsheets, login details, project roadmaps, brand guidelines. They would just get overwhelmed and go quiet on us. So I simplified it to just the first 3 things they need to know and a single phone call. That one change bumped retention up to 85% within 2 months. Anyone else see clients ghost when you hand them a big packet of info upfront?

1

kellymurphy•29d ago

I finally got burned by a $300 SEO tool that promised the moon

Signed up for RankTracker Pro last month after their sales guy said it would find all our keyword gaps. Three weeks later I realized it was just pulling data from a free API and adding a fancy interface. Called and asked for a refund, but they said the 14 day window passed. Any of you use something that actually works for tracking local rankings?

5

grant569•29d ago

Dropped $500 on a fancy CRM and went back to a spreadsheet

Honestly, I thought upgrading to a big client management system would fix all my scheduling chaos. Picked one that looked good, paid for the yearly plan upfront. Three months in, half the features were stuff I never used and the interface just made simple tasks take twice as long. Ended up going back to a Google Sheet I built in an afternoon. Has anyone else overpaid for software that just didn't fit your actual workflow?

14

paigewood•1mo ago

Rant: Lost a $15k client because I didn't double check a calendar invite

Last Tuesday I was supposed to be on a call with a big retail client in Chicago at 10am. I showed up at 10. They were waiting since 9. I had the time zone wrong on my calendar. Client didn't say anything for 20 minutes. By the time I realized, they were already pissed. Emails went cold after that. Found out through a mutual contact they switched agencies. All because I didn't verify the time zone before the meeting. Anyone else lose a client over a dumb admin mistake?

26

elizabeth_chen•1mo ago

Vent: Lost $4k on a retargeting tool that promised the moon

Honestly, we dropped $4,000 on a retargeting platform last quarter based on a slick demo and huge promises. Ngl, the reporting was so confusing we couldn't tell if it actually worked. After three months of tweaking, we saw zero lift in conversions compared to just using basic Google Ads. Tbh, the onboarding was a mess too - took two weeks just to get our pixel firing right. I should've stuck with what we knew instead of chasing shiny software. Has anyone else gotten burned by an agency tool that looked great in the sales call but flopped in real use?

25

luna_wells57•1mo ago

Client project imploded at 3pm on a Friday and I fixed it in 45 minutes

Honestly I was ready to call it a week when a client emailed saying their landing page was broken on mobile. Turns out the dev had pushed a CSS update without testing it first. I pulled up the staging site on my phone and saw the whole CTA button was hidden behind the footer. Fixed it with a simple z-index change in 10 minutes but spent another 30 calming the client down and sending screenshots. They ended up being happy with the quick turnaround but I had a mini heart attack. Anyone else deal with last minute Friday disasters that turn out okay?

11

skylershah•1mo ago

Vent: Stopped chasing Shopify partner badges and my agency is actually doing better now

Three years ago I was all in on getting that Shopify Plus partner badge. Spent probably 6 months jumping through hoops for them, took their quizzes, followed their playbooks. Last month I finally dropped out of the whole partner program entirely. Here's the thing - my team of 4 was spending like 20% of our week on partner requirements and training that had nothing to do with what our actual clients needed. One client in Austin asked me why we kept pushing them toward Shopify Flow when all they wanted was a simple product filter. I had no good answer. Since we stepped back, our project turnaround went from 3 weeks to 1.5 weeks. Has anyone else found that partner programs just slow you down?

3

finleybutler•1mo ago

TIL a project manager in Boise told their team to 'just make the logo bigger' for every single client request

I was on a group call yesterday and heard this from a friend who runs a small design agency. They said their new hire would default to that phrase whenever a client asked for changes, even on things like website layouts or ad copy. It became an inside joke that actually slowed down real feedback. Now I'm wondering if other shops have these weird default responses that mess with client communication. What's the strangest auto-pilot phrase you've heard in your agency?

23

the_sage•1mo ago

Just realized we hit 40% profit margin after cutting our project management software from three tools down to one.

We were paying for Basecamp, Trello, and Asana because different teams 'preferred' them, but consolidating to ClickUp last quarter saved us $12k a year and made our profit jump way more than I expected.

6

josephb35•1mo ago

Switched our weekly team meeting from Monday morning to Friday afternoon

We used to have our main agency sync every Monday at 9 AM. It was always a drag, with everyone just reporting what they did last week. About three months ago, I moved it to 3 PM on Fridays. The change was immediate. Instead of planning, we now review what we actually finished that week and set clear, small goals for Monday morning. Our project start momentum on Mondays is way better now because people come in knowing exactly what to do first. Has anyone else found a better meeting time that improved your team's workflow?

15

leebrown•1mo ago

PSA: We switched from a flat monthly retainer to a project-based fee for a big client in Tampa...

We used to charge them $5,000 a month for 'full support', but the work was always a scramble and they felt nickel-and-dimed for extra requests. Last quarter, we pitched a fixed $18,000 fee for a specific 3-month website rebuild with clear milestones. It was way better... we could plan our team's time, and the client knew exactly what they were getting. Has anyone else found project pricing works better than retainers for certain types of agency work?

20

phoenix845•1mo ago

Rant: Had to pick between a huge client meeting or my team's yearly review day

The meeting was for a potential $50k project, but the reviews were already set for months. I picked the reviews, and the client ghosted us anyway. Do you ever feel like you make the 'right' choice and it still blows up?

25

robert_bennett29•1mo ago

Just changed my mind about hiring a full time project manager

Honestly, I ran my small agency for 4 years without one, thinking I could handle the scheduling and client calls myself. Tbh, I was convinced it was a waste of salary. What changed it was a project for a brewery in Austin that went off the rails last quarter; we missed two deadlines because I was spread too thin. My lead developer finally sat me down and said, 'You're the bottleneck, Rob.' We brought on a PM on a 3-month trial, and our on-time delivery rate went from 65% to 92%. Has anyone else made a similar hire later than they should have? What was the tipping point for you?

15

beth_anderson•1mo ago

Question about the old agency office space I saw in Portland

I was in Portland last week for a small business meetup and walked past the old brick building where a big ad agency used to be. It's a coffee shop now, but you can still see the ghost of their huge logo on the side. It got me thinking about how we used to need that kind of big, flashy space to seem legit to clients. Now my whole team works from home offices and a shared workspace we rent by the hour. We closed our own small office two years ago and saved over $3,000 a month. The change was scary at first, but it forced us to get really good at project management tools and clear communication. Honestly, I don't miss the overhead or the commute one bit. Has anyone else moved from a traditional office and found a specific tool or system that made remote management work better?