• 00:00 – 02:00 – Why Agencies Avoid Talking About Money: Drew reflects on why financial transparency was rare in agencies historically and why that silence created widespread confusion about profitability.
• 02:00 – 05:00 – The Myth of “Impossible” Profitability: Drew explains why claims that an agency “can’t be profitable” usually stem from avoided decisions, misunderstood agency math, or intentional lifestyle choices.
• 05:00 – 07:30 – Agency Growth Breaking Points: Drew outlines common headcount thresholds where systems, processes, and structure begin to break down as agencies grow.
• 07:30 – 10:00 – Challenges of Very Small Agencies: The conversation explores why sub-10-person agencies struggle with inefficiency, tribal knowledge, and inconsistent delivery.
• 10:00 – 13:00 – Generalists vs. Specialists: Drew explains why early-stage generalists often struggle as agencies scale and why specialization becomes essential for profitability.
• 13:00 – 15:30 – Management Layers and Cost Pressure: Marcel and Drew discuss how introducing management roles adds financial strain and operational complexity.
• 15:30 – 17:30 – The Most Profitable Agency Size Range: Drew shares data showing agencies with 15–40 employees consistently outperform others on profitability.
• 17:30 – 19:30 – Why Growing Up Improves Margins: The episode breaks down how systems, niching, and client selection drive efficiency and longer tenure at mid-size agencies.
• 19:30 – 22:00 – Bigger Agencies, Bigger Expectations: Drew explains how larger clients demand higher sophistication, better talent, and increased operational investment.
• 22:00 – 25:00 – Lifestyle Businesses vs. Scalable Agencies: The conversation reframes success, validating highly profitable small agencies that are never intended to be sold.
• 25:00 – 28:00 – Running the Business by the Numbers: Drew and Marcel align on first principles like AGI and the 55-25-20 model as the foundation for healthy decision-making.
• 28:00 – 37:00 – AI, Commoditization, and the Future of Agencies: Drew connects decades of industry evolution to today’s AI shift, arguing that strategy, thinking, and leadership—not production—are the true sources of agency value.

• Connect with Drew via LinkedIn
• AMI
  • Website
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• 00:01 – 01:04 – Framing the PM/AM Pricing Question: Marcel welcomes listeners, introduces Carson Pierce, and frames the central question agencies face around whether and how to charge for account and project management time.
• 01:04 – 02:14 – Why This Issue Persists: Carson explains why underpricing project and account management work continues to surface across agencies despite increased industry maturity.
• 02:14 – 03:28 – The Myth That Clients Won’t Pay: Carson challenges the belief that clients resist paying for PM and AM work and reframes these roles as valuable parts of delivery.
• 03:30 – 04:32 – Why PM and AM Time Is Hard to Track: Carson outlines how fragmented tasks, short work intervals, and multi-client meetings make accurate time tracking impractical.
• 04:33 – 06:20 – Pricing Model Confusion as the Root Cause: Marcel connects PM/AM underpricing to weak separation between price, scope, and cost, especially in time-based billing models.
• 06:21 – 07:25 – The ABR Distortion Effect: Carson explains how excluding PM time inflates average billable rate and hides true delivery economics.
• 07:25 – 08:24 – Two Ways to Price PM and AM Work: Marcel introduces the two viable approaches—pricing PM/AM directly in scope or absorbing the cost through margin targets.
• 08:24 – 09:50 – When Client Pushback Actually Appears: Carson explains why most clients accept reasonable PM allocations and why resistance typically signals excessive or poorly designed PM effort.
• 09:51 – 14:02 – Why Time-Tracking Fixes Often Fail: Carson reviews common PM tracking approaches and explains why they frequently add overhead without producing actionable insight.
• 14:03 – 19:59 – Building PM Costs Into Margin Targets: Marcel explains how agencies can model PM and AM costs directly or indirectly based on tracking feasibility and role structure.
• 20:00 – 29:00 – Structuring Account and Project Management Roles: Marcel and Carson discuss when to separate AM and PM roles, referencing Brett Harned’s perspective and tying structure to work complexity.
• 29:01 – 36:13 – Sales Allocation, Overhead Clarity, and Wrap-Up: The episode concludes with guidance on allocating AM time to sales only when explicit, avoiding circumstantial overhead, and reinforcing intentional PM pricing.

• Brett Harned - Agency consultant and advocate for separating account and project management roles.
• Related Episode: Casey Brown on pricing increases and margin correction.

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• 00:01 – Introduction: Marcel introduces Skye Waterson and frames the conversation around SOPs, documentation, and building operational “rails” that teams can actually use.
• 01:07 – Skye’s background and motivation: Skye shares her journey from academic burnout to discovering adult ADHD and building a business focused on helping founders work with their brains, not against them.
• 03:04 – Why ADHD frameworks help everyone: Skye explains how ADHD-friendly systems emphasize flexibility and challenge outdated assumptions about productivity and work structure.
• 05:05 – First principles for ADHD productivity: The discussion covers practical strategies like rewarding task initiation and reducing reliance on working memory through better capture systems.
• 06:56 – The core problem with traditional SOPs: Skye and Marcel outline why most SOPs go stale—delegated, filed away, and only referenced during onboarding or emergencies.
• 09:18 – SOP neglect as a hidden operational risk: The conversation highlights how disconnected SOPs undermine dashboards, metrics, and leadership visibility.
• 11:32 – Visualizing the business as a flow: Skye introduces her core framework: mapping the business end-to-end (acquisition through expansion) using a visual tool like Miro.
• 14:02 – Why digital visual tools matter: Skye explains why paper-based process mapping fails and why digital tools enable iteration, ownership, and follow-through.
• 15:52 – Assigning a single DRI per process: Each node in the business flow is assigned a Directly Responsible Individual to eliminate ambiguity and improve accountability.
• 16:40 – Red, orange, green process health: Processes are color-coded to show whether they are broken, manual and CEO-dependent, or documented and team-run.
• 18:09 – Tying SOPs to weekly cadence and metrics: Skye explains how reviewing SOP health alongside performance metrics turns documentation into an operational diagnostic tool.
• 24:41 – AI and living SOPs: The episode closes with best practices for using AI to bootstrap SOPs, delegate ownership, and treat documentation as a living draft rather than a finished artifact.

• Connect with Skye via LinkedIn
• Unconventional Organization
• Skye’s Podcast ADHD Skills Lab
• AI Chatbot: Message Skye on Instagram with the word “Marcel” and she’ll send you the chatbot
• Software as a Science Book
• Matt Verlaque

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