Libsyn Directory

Key Metrics for Agencies: What to Track for Better Decisions | EP 11

Release Date: 09/26/2025

The Six Levers of Profitable Client Engagements | EP20

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Running an agency is an exercise in risk management. In this episode, hosts Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim break down the most significant threats that can jeopardize an agency's survival. They move beyond daily annoyances to focus on the high-impact risks that can truly put a business in danger. Using a simple risk matrix framework, Peter and Sei-Wook categorize and explore nine critical vulnerabilities, from founder burnout and partner conflict to client concentration and strategic misalignment. They provide actionable advice on how to identify, prepare for, and mitigate each risk, sharing...

Learning From Other Agency Owners | EP19

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Great agencies are not built in isolation. In this episode, Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim explore the transformative power of community and peer learning for agency founders. The hosts share their personal journey from working in a silo to actively seeking mentorship and joining dedicated communities, revealing how these connections helped them avoid blind spots, gain crucial perspective, and accelerate their growth. Peter and Sei-Wook break down specific communities that have been instrumental to their journey, including Bureau of Digital, Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), and Collective 54....

Why Agencies Rely on Referrals But Few Treat It as a System | EP18

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Most agencies say they rely on referrals, but few treat them as a system. In this episode, Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim dismantle the "hope-based" approach to referrals and lay out a strategic framework for building a consistent pipeline. Drawing from the book The Referral Code, they redefine referrals as a transfer of goodwill and share actionable tactics for intentional referral generation. Peter and Sei-Wook cover how to identify the right people to ask, the critical importance of timing your ask within a "state of appreciation," and how to craft effective, open-ended questions. They also...

How Agencies Should Think About and Manage Risk | EP 17

The AgencyHabits Podcast

In this episode, hosts Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim break down the six fundamental levers that drive profitability across all client engagements, whether you run fixed-fee projects, retainers, or long-term service programs. Drawing from real challenges within their own portfolio at Barrel Holdings, Peter and Sei-Wook provide a practical framework for diagnosing and fixing margin compression. They start by defining gross margin and then explore each lever in detail: from pricing and scoping to staffing, engagement design, scope management, reusable IP, and the role of automation and AI. The...

Scaling Your Agency Beyond $2M | EP 16

The AgencyHabits Podcast

In this episode, Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim dissect why agencies hit this wall and what you can do to break through. They explain how founder-centric systems that work at a smaller scale become the primary constraint to growth, leading to breakdowns in client delivery, team management, and financial visibility. The hosts share actionable solutions, from improving onboarding and implementing debrief processes to strategically hiring for your weaknesses and deepening financial rigor. They also introduce the Agency Systems Playbook, a framework of five core systems that drive a scalable agency....

How Agencies Can Be Better at Marketing Themselves | EP 15

The AgencyHabits Podcast

In this episode, hosts Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim tackle a common agency pitfall: treating marketing as a short-term, reactive effort only when leads dry up. They argue for a fundamental mindset shift, framing marketing as a long-term investment in reputation and awareness, similar to the compounding benefits of consistent exercise. Peter and Sei-Wook first outline the "basics" of agency marketing: from social posts and case studies to newsletters and events, and then dive deep into six specific, unconventional examples. They share their own experiences with a 24-hour website challenge and...

[REPLAY] Why & How to Prune Your Client Roster for Agency Growth | EP 19

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Holding on to the wrong clients can stunt your agency's growth, drain your team's morale, and cripple your profitability. This statement holds value for agency owners who are overwhelmed by client demands, feel trapped by early, problematic clients, or are struggling to focus their service offerings for maximum impact. In this episode, Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim tackle the difficult but essential practice of proactively reviewing and pruning your client list. Drawing from Barrel's own journey of specialization, they provide a clear-eyed framework for evaluating which clients are worth...

[REPLAY] How Much Cash Should Your Agency Keep on Hand? | EP 18

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Profit on paper doesn't pay the bills. Learn the best practices for designing payment terms and invoicing cadences to create a smooth, predictable cash flow. In this episode, Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim tackle one of the most critical yet misunderstood aspects of running an agency: cash flow management. They break down the dangerous gap between your P&L's accrual-based profitability and the real money in your bank account, explaining why even "profitable" agencies can face insolvency. Peter and Sei-Wook share hard-earned lessons from their own journey, including how much cash reserve is...

[REPLAY] How Specialization Impacts Your Agency’s Growth, Margins, and Valuation | EP 16

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Is your agency a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none"? In this episode, hosts Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim dive deep into the transformative power of agency specialization. They break down the critical difference between internal specialization and external positioning, and reveal why narrowing your focus is the ultimate growth accelerator for agencies under $10M in revenue. Peter and Sei-Wook share Barrel Holdings' own journey from a generalist agency serving investment banks and nail salons to a specialized leader in the Shopify CPG space. They provide a clear-eyed view of the trade-offs...

[REPLAY] Are You Calculating Your Agency’s Profits Correctly? | EP 15

The AgencyHabits Podcast

Agency profitability isn’t always what it seems. In this episode, Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim break down how to really evaluate your agency’s profit. The hosts also talks about why two agencies reporting the same margins can mean totally different things. They unpack the difference between EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) and SDE (Seller’s Discretionary Earnings), showing how owner salaries, distributions, and “normalization” adjustments can completely change the story. Whether you’re thinking about selling your agency or just want a clearer...

More Episodes

In this episode, hosts Peter Kang and Sei-Wook Kim cut through the noise of data overload to share the essential metrics every agency should track. Moving beyond fancy dashboards, they break down the handful of key performance indicators (KPIs) that truly drive informed decision-making at their portfolio agencies under Barrel Holdings.

Peter and Sei-Wook explain the critical difference between lag measures (reporting on the past) and lead measures (predicting the future), providing a clear framework for both. They dive deep into core financial metrics like revenue mix, gross margin, and EBITDA, and operational essentials like utilization and pipeline health. They also share practical advice on avoiding common pitfalls, like making hasty decisions based on unverified forecast data or tracking too many meaningless numbers.

Whether you're drowning in spreadsheets or flying blind, this episode offers a pragmatic, battle-tested approach to measuring what matters, so you can focus on growing a healthier, more profitable agency.

Key Moments

1. Why less is more: The danger of tracking everything and the power of a simplified dashboard.

2. Lag vs. Lead: Understanding the difference between historical reports and future forecasts.

3. Revenue 101: Why breaking down revenue into recurring vs. project and new vs. existing clients is crucial.

4. Gross Margin as a health check: What it says about your pricing and operational efficiency.

5. The story behind EBITDA: How to interpret SG&A costs and strategic investments.

6. Utilization deep dive: Why targets vary by role and how to forecast future capacity.

7. The art of the pipeline: Tracking leads, proposals, win rates, and converting it into a weighted revenue forecast.

8. Secondary metrics worth a glance: Accounts receivable aging, client concentration, and net revenue retention.

9. The human side: Why employee satisfaction and retention are leading indicators of business health.

10. The litmus test: How to know if a metric is worth tracking or just becoming "wallpaper."

Real Talk Takeaways

1. Data is a signal, not gospel. Never make a major decision based on a number without understanding the story behind it.

2. A signed contract doesn't equal instant revenue. A weighted pipeline that maps revenue to future months is essential for cash flow planning.

3. Utilization targets are not one-size-fits-all. They depend on role, seniority, and your agency's billing rates.

4. Profitability is a multi-layered game. You need to understand it at the project, client, and overall agency level.

5. The most important metric is the one you act on. If you're not having conversations or making decisions based on a KPI, stop tracking it.

6. Don't let perfect data paralyze you. A directional understanding of your forecast is better than no forecast at all.

7. Metrics should inform judgment, not replace it. Leadership is about interpreting the data and making the call.

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: Cutting through the noise of agency metrics

00:15 – The "less is more" philosophy for agency dashboards

01:05 – Lag vs. Lead Measures: Defining historical and predictive metrics

01:20 – Lag Measure #1: Revenue (Recurring vs. Project, New vs. Existing)

02:07 – Why the recurring revenue mix is a key stability indicator

02:20 – Lag Measure #2: Gross Margin (Pricing & Operational Efficiency)

03:24 – Lag Measure #3: EBITDA (Understanding SG&A and strategic investments)

04:17 – Lag Measure #4: Utilization (Targets by role and discipline)

05:24 – What is a "good" utilization rate? (Spoiler: It depends)

05:40 – Shifting to Lead Measures: Forecasting the future

05:48 – Lead Measure #1: Forecasted Utilization (Avoiding capacity cliffs)

06:48 – The critical step: Verifying forecast data with your team before acting

07:23 – Why you must look beyond the next two weeks in your forecast

08:27 – Lead Measure #2: Pipeline (Leads, proposals, win rates, and value)

09:33 – The importance of tracking new work from existing clients

10:12 – How to build a "Weighted Pipeline" to forecast committed revenue

11:33 – The critical difference between bookings and recognized revenue

12:46 – How a signed mega-deal can still leave you in a cash flow drought

13:00 – How pipeline forecasts impact hiring decisions and gross margins

13:47 – Secondary Metrics: The supporting cast of data

14:04 – Accounts Receivable Aging: The cash flow reality check

14:28 – Client Concentration: Measuring your biggest risk

14:50 – Net Revenue Retention: The ultimate test of client growth

15:56 – Why employee satisfaction and retention are business health metrics

17:12 – Project & Client Profitability: Learning from past engagements

18:13 – The final word: If you don't act on it, don't track it

18:39 – The "wallpaper" test for metrics

19:33 – Finding the right cadence for each metric (weekly, monthly, quarterly)

19:52 – Wrap-up: Metrics inform judgment, they don't replace it

Notable Quotes

"It's very easy to go overboard, just start tracking everything you can... there's actually benefit to having less." – Peter Kang on simplifying your dashboard.

"Metrics can be lag measures... reporting on what happened in the past versus lead measures, which you're trying to project the future." – Sei Wook Kim on the two types of data.

"Gross margin... reflects how profitable are the projects that we're running. It speaks to operational efficiency." – Peter Kang on the story behind the number.

"Any of these things... it's making sure the data is correct before making any decisions on it." – Sei Wook Kim on the danger of unverified forecasts.

"A signed contract for a $500k project sounds great, but if it doesn't start for months, you still might be in a drought and be in trouble." – Peter Kang on the difference between bookings and cash flow.

"Metrics are... it shouldn't replace judgment. You have to look at this and decide is it telling you the right thing." – Sei Wook Kim on the role of leadership in interpreting data.

Links & Resources

Peter Kang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkang34/

Sei-Wook on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seiwookkim/

AgencyHabits Website: https://www.agencyhabits.com/

AgencyHabits on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/agencyhabits/

Barrel Holdings Website: https://www.barrel-holdings.com/

Barrel Holdings LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/barrel-holdings/

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