Uplevel Your Agency · 2023-05-10 · 16 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
19 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Agency owners often experience a transition from bottlenecking on client delivery to bottlenecking on leadership and operations. Nicole Miller identifies the three key indicators that signal readiness to hire a leadership team: first, being at capacity with clients while seeing clear growth opportunities but lacking operational infrastructure to pursue them; second, having shifted from hands-on client work to managing internal projects and team leadership; and third, typically operating at approximately $40,000-$50,000 monthly recurring revenue or higher. Rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all leadership structure, Miller emphasizes that configurations vary dramatically based on business type and service delivery model - a copywriting agency might need operations, creative, and marketing directors, while an accounting firm might structure around operations, tax, and marketing. The episode focuses specifically on Phase One implementation: establishing foundational organizational charts (both current and 12-month projected), defining roles, responsibilities, and KPIs, selecting internal promotions or external hires for department head positions, and creating structured 90-day onboarding plans to ensure successful transitions.
Nicole typically sees businesses shift to director and executive-level leadership around $40,000-$50,000 monthly revenue ($500,000+ annually), though this varies significantly by business type and services offered.
Department heads should own their team's performance (including feedback and culture) and take ownership of projects needed to improve their department's performance, either managing or partnering with others to execute those projects.
Either approach works depending on your situation - promote someone internally who is interested and either fits the role immediately or can be mentored into it, or hire externally if no current team member has the interest or skill set.
Phase One involves creating updated organizational charts for current and 12-month-projected states, defining roles and KPIs, identifying candidates for department head positions, and establishing 90-day onboarding plans with weekly milestones.
Break down the 12 weeks into weekly milestones showing what the person is responsible for each week, then check in regularly to adjust timelines (extending or shortening) and scope based on actual execution versus projections.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode is structurally organised but almost entirely composed of generic managerial advice (build an org chart, set KPIs, do a 90-day onboarding plan) that any competent agency operator would already know. The lone semi-concrete data point is buried in heavy hedging and the rest is padded with repetition and throat-clearing.
I typically see business owners start to take a look at higher level support inside of their business when they're at about, about $40,000 a month or $50,000 a month
I always like to just add that this is very dependent on your business, the services that you offer, the clients that you work with. So I, I sometimes dislike throwing out financial figures because there's always exceptions
Every framework presented - org charts projected 12 months out, promoting vs. hiring externally, 90-day onboarding plans, KPIs per role - is textbook management consulting boilerplate with zero contrarian or first-principles thinking anywhere in the episode.
I love, when hiring new team members or if you have a current team member who's fulfilling a new role, I'd love to create a 90 day onboarding plan
Creating an org chart for where you are right now, an updated org chart, and then also for where you are going, and then based on that, updating your roles and responsibilities
This is a solo host episode with no guest at all. The host presents herself as an agency-operations consultant referencing anecdotal client conversations, but establishes no verifiable credentials, revenue scale she has personally operated at, or practitioner track record.
I'm your host, Nicole Miller
I work with lot of different types of businesses and even when a business is offering similar services to another business
The episode offers almost no concrete evidence: the single revenue threshold ($500K/year) is immediately and repeatedly caveated into meaninglessness, the role-configuration examples are generic title lists with no real company names or outcomes, and every claim is prefaced with 'it depends'.
I typically don't see businesses focusing on leadership team half a million dollar mark
A team configuration could be an operations director, a creative director, a marketing director
This is an uninterrupted solo monologue; there are no questions, no pushback, and no follow-ups by definition. The delivery itself is rambling and self-interrupting, with frequent sentence restarts and hedging that reduce rather than add clarity.
And so, uh, maybe you have turned off your marketing. I talked to an agency owner that has just recently done this
I'm like 1212 weeks and 90 days. So uh, what they're going to be responsible for each and every week
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Have you moved from being the bottleneck with client work and management to being the bottleneck when it comes to implementing internal operational projects and leading your team? If so, you may be in a position to need higher level support inside your business. Enter: the Leadership Team. In this episode, Nicole walks you through example leadership configurations and the three phases she implements with her clients when establishing their leadership teams. What’s in this episode: How much revenue you need to make before hiring a leadership team What should be included in your hiring plan What your leadership team should take off your plate How to transfer ownership to your department heads For full show notes, resources, and links, head to Nicole is currently taking on a select number of 1:1 clients to support them with building and developing a leadership team. If you’re interested, send us an email at hi@nicolejacksonmiller.com
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Welcome to the Up Level youl Agency Podcast, the go to resource for agency owners or any service provider who's looking to get better at delegating client work, improving operations and leading their company. I'm your host, Nicole Miller. Let's dive into today's episode. Hey everyone. Nicole here and welcome back to the show. Today we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics which is leadership and three signs that you may be in a position now to hire in a leadership team. Or maybe here are some signs for you to watch out for if maybe this is not happening for you at this moment, but maybe happening for you in the near future. This episode is inspired by several conversations that I've had with business owners who have found that they once were very heavily involved in client work and and management of client delivery and now are feeling like they are extremely heavily involved in their operations and in leading their team in spearheading operational projects to be able to continue to grow. And they moved from being the bottleneck of client work to now they're the bottleneck of leadership and just know that something needs to shift in order to allow them to continue to grow. So I want to share a few signs that, or at least indicators that you may be position so that you can know what to look out for and if maybe some of the challenges that you've been having lately are because it's time for you to really focus in on bringing in higher level support. We're going to talk a little bit about some example configurations of what this might look like and then the different phases that I recommend implementing if you are in this position and looking to get started with bringing in a leadership team. Okay, so some signs. So the first sign is that you right now are feeling like you are at capacity with the number of clients that you have. And this doesn't necessarily mean that you couldn't take on more clients, but it means that maybe you can't take on more clients without rearranging some things internally. You also see that there are very obvious ways for you to be able to continue to grow your business, but perhaps you felt a little overwhelmed on the operational side or maybe that your operations aren't quite in order for you to be able to do that. And so, uh, maybe you have turned off your marketing. I talked to an agency owner that has just recently done this because she knows that she needs to make some internal shifts in order to be able to continue to grow. And so she's like, you know, we're just not accepting clients for a while and I've stopped my podcast and so, um, that could be an indicator. Maybe you've continued marketing efforts, but you've continued to put people on wait lists because you just know that you can't continue to be able to lead your team in the most effective way to be able to serve more people. So the point here is that your services are very in demand and you can see the opportunity all around you to serve more clients. Right. But something needs to change on that operational side. I'm also going to throw out a financial figure here and I always like to just add that this is very dependent on your business, the services that you offer, the clients that you work with. So I, I sometimes dislike throwing out financial figures because there's always exceptions. It's not a rule. Like numbers feel very definite to me and that's not the case here. But I typically see business owners start to take a look at higher level support inside of their business when they're at about, about $40,000 a month or $50,000 a month and then obviously upward from there. So that lands at about a half a million dollars a year. And then obviously as they grow from there, the, the focus is even a little bit more stronger on that leadership level. But I typically don't see businesses focusing on leadership team half a million dollar mark. Now that does not mean that they don't have managers on their team. Okay, you can definitely still have, uh, client and team managers or account managers that are facilitating for you and maybe operating at a higher level. But when it comes to more of the director and executive level, I'm typically not seeing that until folks have reached at least a half a million. The next sign that you are ready to shift, in addition to what I've already talked about, you, you've really shifted from being that bottleneck with client work to being the bottleneck with leading. And so some signs of this is maybe that there's a lot of internal projects that need to happen in order to be able to move your business forward. But you either you either don't have the capacity to do that, or it's maybe not your area of expertise necessarily and you have implementers who are actually doing the client work already and you can could just continue to repeat the process of hiring those implementers and could take on more and more clients, but the leadership level needs to shift and change. So with this, people often ask, okay, well if I am in this position now, who do I hire first and what is my, what does my leadership configuration look like? If I already have managers in my company, what do the directors, Are they directors? Like, what, what does this look like? And the answer is that it really does depend on, uh, not only the services that you're offering, but the way that you're offering them. I work with lot of different types of businesses and even when a business is offering similar services to another business, let's say accounting or copywriting or human resources, based on the way that they're delivering the services, their team configuration can change pretty, it can change pretty drastically. So I share this, um, with you just because I want you to know that really creating a configuration that works for you is probably going to be a little bit more in depth than just listening to this podcast episode. So let's say you have a copywriting, um, agency. A team configuration could be an operations director, a creative director, a marketing director. If you have an HR agency, it could be an operations director, a compliance director, a recruitment director based on what you specialize in. If you have an accounting agency, it could be an operations director. If you offer tax services, a tax director and a marketing director. So again, it really depends on what particular services your business offers and how you offer them. But that is, those are just a few examples. So when it comes to actually implementing this, I recommend first, I usually will do this in phases. So something that I'll, uh, announce this here first, I haven't really talked about this publicly is that I am now offering higher level support for larger businesses when it comes to operational strategy and really developing the leadership team inside of these businesses. And when I go into a business of this size, I typically start here and I implement in phases. So today we're just going to be talking about what phase one looks like. And hopefully if you're in a position where you know you need to hire a leadership team, maybe you've already started but you're not quite sure or like where to go from here, or maybe you're not at the level or uh, maybe right now you don't need a leadership team. But you want to know what's coming. Here are some, um, areas that we look at first. So the first thing that I typically look at are the foundations. And this is what that looks like when you are at the position where you are going to be having department heads, let's call them department heads on your team, right? I would call that the leadership team, but I'll also call them department heads. So the first thing is to create an updated organizational chart based on not just where you are right now, but where you are projected to be in 12 months. This is where you definitely want to take a look at your numbers. You want to create projections based on the opportunities that are around you. And then you could also use opportunities and a mixture of historical data to be able to project over the course of the next 12 months. So that could be something along the lines of taking on a certain number of projects over the next 12 months, or taking on a certain number of clients over the next 12 months, whatever is most applicable to your business. Creating an org chart for where you are right now, an updated org chart, and then also for where you are going, and then based on that, updating your roles and responsibilities of your team members, and then also the key performance indicators or KPIs for each of those team members. I, we can go much more in depth on each of these areas. I'm not going to do that today on the actual how to create roles and responsibilities and KPIs, but these are all things that you will want to update so that you can really see, okay, what does it look like, you know, six or 12 months from now? Who are the roles? What roles am I actually looking to fill? Who on the team, either that I already have can fill those roles or that I need to hire can fill those roles? And then once they're here, how do we measure their performance? Okay, so that's all in the foundational area. The next area that we take a look at is the actual management. And this is either promoting someone internally who fits, who fits the position and either fits the position right away or can be transitioned or mentored into the position, or it might also be hiring someone externally to come in and fill the role. If you don't currently have someone on your team who's either A interested or B has a skill set to be able to do it. So there's a few things that you'll want to do when you're bringing somebody in. And I think if I were to really take a step back and summarize what you would want this level of people to do inside of your business, it's really to be able to take ownership of two things when it comes to their department. The first is team performance. So it's really their responsibility to own their team's performance. So their team will be reporting to them and they're responsible for doing things like meeting with them, checking in with them, reviewing their performance and delivering feedback. Really also being the visionary for their department for really leading their team members and sharing what that vision is. And Creating a really meaningful culture that's also obviously you have company culture, but then really making sure that's infused to each one of your teams. So that's one area. The second area is really being able to take ownership over any projects that need to happen within that department to improve the department's performance. So this could be something like implementing, like purchasing and implementing new software. It could be streamlining a delivery process and rolling that out to your clients and customers. And it doesn't, doesn't necessarily mean that person is going to be the project manager doing that, but they would be the ones partnering with a project manager manager to be able to implement those projects. But ultimately they would be taking ownership over team performance and those projects. So that's the second area that we focus on. And then the third area is the actual implementation of this. So the first two areas, foundations and management, there's starting to be some implementation work. Obviously you're updating different tools like organizational charts, roles and responsibilities, KPIs in the management. You're identifying who needs to fill that um, leadership role and what that looks like. Starting to either mentor someone on your team or start the process with someone on your team or start their hiring process. And then there's implementation. And this is really what I would, I could, if I could compare this to something that you might already know about, it would be like an onboarding plan. And so I love, when hiring new team members or if you have a current team member who's fulfilling a new role, I'd love to create a 90 day onboarding plan. And within this plan we have over the first week what they'll be responsible for over the second week what they'll be responsible for all the way to the 12th week, right? 4, 4, 8, 12. I'm like 1212 weeks and 90 days. So uh, what they're going to be responsible for each and every week and then checking in with them to see how it's going and where plan needs to be adjusted. Because sometimes we have a different idea of what is possible versus when we're actually implementing where we realize either something takes a little bit shorter or it actually takes a little bit longer. And then determining how you want to adjust the plan moving forward, either maybe extending the deadline out and giving it more time or maybe changing the scope so that you are able to do something faster. But that is really, that third phase is really the implementation where you already have some momentum going. You're working on that transitional plan, that 90 day transitional plan. You're seeing how people are doing, and then you're able to modify it accordingly and be able to either give folks more mentorship or make those timeline adjustments. And ultimately, what we want to do is really see whoever it is that you need to hire on your leadership team right now, we want to see them start to take over the reins and then eventually take that complete ownership over their team and their projects. Okay, so this is what I would love for you to do. If you are in a position right now where you feel like you need to hire in a leadership team, or maybe you already have a leadership team and it needs to be working better, I would love for you to let me know where is it that things feel a little heavy or confusing to you? Send me an email, uh, at hi h icolejacksonmiller.com and let me know. Or if you are someone who is not in this position yet, but you are thinking you might be there in the next few months, I'd love for you to send me an email. Let me know what do you need support with when it comes to hiring a leadership team? Because I'm going to be continuing to create more podcast episodes based on your feedback. There's a lot of different areas we could go into when it comes to leadership teams. And so based on your feedback, I will be creating and crafting more episodes to help support you. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us this week and I will see you next week. If you enjoyed today's episode, then I highly recommend you check out my free training. Three reasons why you're an agency owner who's still doing client work and how to delegate for good. Head over to nicolejacksonmiller.com uplevel to watch it now. It.
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