Do You Need an Agency Operations Consultant?

Jeff Cypher is a marketing consultant turned operations nerd who has helped hundreds of agencies fix chaotic project management and stop needlessly hopping from one PM tool to the next.

Common Agency Struggles

At ZenPilot, we speak with agencies of all shapes and sizes on a daily basis. However, regardless of their size, types of clients served, or services that they offer, 99.99% of agencies face the same challenges:

1. Lack of Documented Processes: Many agencies struggle with ill-defined or inefficient business processes. This can lead to confusion, duplication of work, and wasted resources. An operations consultant can review your existing processes, identify inefficiencies, and develop streamlined processes that enhance productivity.

2. Inadequate Documentation: Without proper documentation, vital information can be lost or misunderstood, leading to errors and inefficiencies. Operations consultants can help set up robust documentation systems, ensuring that crucial information is captured accurately and communicated effectively.

3. Inefficient Use of Systems and Software: Agencies often have multiple systems and tools, but they aren't always well integrated or used to their full potential. An operations consultant can audit your existing systems, suggest improvements or alternatives, and help integrate them for maximum efficiency.

4. No Single Source of Truth: Similar to inefficient usage of systems and software, agencies often lack a single source of truth. Communication happens in Slack, email, documents, and your project management tool, leaving your team clueless into whats up-to-date and what isn't. An operations consultant can help you build a system (in your PM tool) that becomes your central source of truth.

5. Data Overload: With so much data available, it can be difficult to determine what's most important for making informed business decisions. Operations consultants can help structure your data and develop meaningful reports that provide insights into performance and profitability.

6. Bad Team Habits: Agencies may have processes and/or documentation, but without healthy habits across the team, processes can become useless. Operations consultants can help coach, train and help hold your team accountable to build the habits you need to be successful. 

7. Difficulty Scaling: If your agency is struggling to manage increasing workloads or is unable to take on new clients due to capacity constraints, an operations consultant can help. By improving processes, systems, and data management, they can position your agency for scalable growth.

Understanding Agency Operations Consulting

Let’s dissect what agency operations consulting entails.

Operations consultants primarily concentrate on these key areas:

• Building Processes & Automating Workflows: Streamlining business operations is integral to enhancing efficiency and productivity. Operations consultants identify bottlenecks and redundancies in your business processes and implement solutions (i.e. automations) to eliminate them.
• Implementing Tools and Systems: From time tracking software to project management tools, operations consultants help to set up, integrate, and optimize systems that enhance your agency's operations.
• Creating Clarity for Leadership: Alongside implementing tools and systems, operations consultants help you develop the reporting you need to visualize and understand performance (i.e. profitability by client and service, utilization, avg. billable and labor rates, LTV, capacity, retention, etc.)
• ROI Driven Change Management: Getting your team to change out of old habits is never easy. An agency operations consultant can help your team navigate through change, helping you see ROI as quickly as possible.

The Benefits of Hiring an Agency Operations Consultant

Hiring an agency operations consultant can bring several potential benefits to your agency:

• You Can Save Money: For smaller agencies, hiring a seasoned operations consultant may seem like a daunting financial investment. However, consultants offer senior-level expertise tailored to your business needs at a fraction of the cost of a full-time operations manager.

• You Can Avoid Costly Mistakes: As the old adage goes, “prevention is better than cure.” A consultant can help you avoid costly errors by helping you get things right the first time. We've seen thousands of agencies try to self-implement tools like ClickUp, but without the expertise and experience, these projects can be painful and time consuming. Read about Gravity Global's self implementation experience. 

• You Get to Benefit from an Expert Eye: An operations consultant is a seasoned professional who has worked and seen "under the hood" of other agencies, bringing extensive knowledge about what works and what doesn’t. They can bring fresh, objective insights into your business processes, systems, and documentation, identifying areas of improvement that may have been overlooked.

• You Can Save Time: Time is a precious resource, and by delegating your operational challenges to an expert, you free up time to focus on what you do best—running your agency and serving your clients.

• You Can Improve Efficiency and Productivity: An operations consultant can help you streamline your business processes, enhance your systems, and improve your documentation. This can lead to significant improvements in efficiency and productivity, ultimately benefiting your bottom line.

• You Can Know Who and When to Hire: Making smart hiring decisions can be a huge blocker for scaling agencies. It can be tough to know when and who to hire. An operations consultant can help you set up the systems you need to take the guesswork out of hiring decisions. 

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Common Questions Surrounding Agency Operations Consultants

What is the primary role of an operations consultant?

An operations consultant provides expert advice and support to help an agency improve their internal operations.

This may involve restructuring business processes, improving documentation standards, enhancing software systems, and making data-driven decisions to optimize profitability and efficiency.

How does an operations consultant differ from a business consultant?

While there is some overlap in roles, an operations consultant focuses more on the internal workings of an agency—systems, processes, and workflows—rather than broader business strategy. 

How can an operations consultant help my agency grow?

By streamlining your business processes, setting up effective documentation standards, and integrating and optimizing your systems, an operations consultant can enhance your agency's efficiency and productivity. This can lead to increased profitability, scalability, and strategic growth. 

At ZenPilot, we've helped agencies grow profits $1.2 million in year one, triple head count and sell their business. By taking operations seriously, agencies can significantly improve productivity and team health, leading to improved client health and profits.

How does an operations consultant measure success?

Success can be measured in many ways depending on your agency's specific goals. Common metrics include improvements in profitability, efficiency, and productivity, as well as positive feedback from the team regarding the new workflows and processes.

At ZenPilot, we utilize our Agency Operator Scorecard (book a call with us to start building yours) to help agencies benchmark current performance and metrics - utilization rate, billable rate, growth rate, revenue, retention, margin, etc. - and track improvements over time.

How much does an operations consultant cost?

The cost of an operations consultant can vary based on their level of expertise, the scope of the project, and the size of your agency.

Experienced consultants with 10+ years of tactical experience in your industry can cost upwards of $200/hr, but at ZenPilot, we provide flat-fee-based packages tailored to your specific needs. Most agencies can get started by as little as $2,500 with us.

Why Have 2,700+ Agencies Chosen ZenPilot?

ZenPilot helps agencies build more productive, profitable and healthy teams by leading them through their last project management implementation.

Your project management environment is a massive component of your operation. It's where your processes live, the work happens and it's a system that can make or break your agency.

Agencies are constantly switching project management tools, leading to wasted software costs, inefficient processes and a burnt out team.

We've helped agencies increase productivity by 400%, improve client retention, triple headcount seamlessly, and grow profits by $1.2 million in year 1.

Here's what makes us unique...

1. We are masters in project management technology. Over the last 10 years, we've evaluated, used and tested every project management tool on the market. Lowering your risk and helping you get the right technology for the job.
2. We are agency operations experts With a behind-the-scenes look at almost 3,000 different agencies, we've built (and tested) the structure and process templates agencies need to build a more productive, profitable and healthy team. Providing you with minimal manual effort and the fastest time-to-value with already built plug-and-play process templates.
3. We know how to effectively and efficiently lead teams through transformational change. After leading over 10,000 people through a complete transformation in the way they work, we've designed the exact process agencies need to get their team to buy-in and build the habits that makes a project management tool work. Upskilling your team with the best operations education on the market.

If you're ready to experience the power of world-class operations, schedule your free ops strategy call here.