Libsyn Directory

How Agencies Should Think About and Manage Risk | EP 17

Release Date: 12/09/2025

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

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 hosts also fold in core principles around utilization, forecasting, and delivery discipline, showing how these habits reinforce each other to protect and grow your bottom line.

For any agency owner feeling the squeeze on margins or looking to systemize profitability, this episode is an actionable guide to building a more efficient and financially resilient business.

Key Moments

1. Defining Gross Margin: The starting point for understanding your agency's financial health.

2. Lever 1: Pricing & Scoping – How to align your fee with the cost of delivery from the very beginning.

3. Lever 2: Staffing & Utilization – Balancing senior and junior talent and using contractors to flex capacity.

4. Lever 3: Engagement Design & Approach – The cost of poor process and the power of a clear project plan.

5. Lever 4: Scope Management & Change Orders – Turning scope creep from a profit killer into a managed process.

6. Lever 5: Reusable Components & IP – How specialization and systematization create leverage and higher margins.

7. Lever 6: Automations & AI – Using technology to reduce administrative and execution costs across the delivery lifecycle.

Real Talk Takeaways

1. Profitability often leaks at the very start through misaligned pricing and vague scopes. Get this right first.

2. High gross margin on a single project means little if your overall team utilization is low. You must look at the whole picture.

3. A clear, even if imperfect, project plan is far better than a perfect plan that never gets finished or has an open-ended timeline.

4. Managing scope is an art that involves trade-offs, prioritization, and clear documentation—not just issuing change orders.

5. Building a library of reusable components and IP is an investment that pays off by allowing you to deliver higher-quality work faster and with less expensive resources.

6. Automation and AI are no longer optional; they are critical tools for cutting administrative overhead and accelerating execution.

7. Profitability is a team sport. It requires shared accountability through weekly check-ins, forecasting, and structured debriefs.

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction: Why Profitability is Top of Mind

01:00 – The Core Concept: What is Gross Margin?

02:21 – The Three Main Sources of Margin Leakage

02:55 – Introducing the Six Profitability Levers

03:27 – Lever 1: The Critical Alignment of Pricing and Scoping

06:36 – Lever 2: Balancing Staffing Mix and Tracking Utilization

10:36 – Lever 3: Designing Engagements for Efficiency, Not Waste

13:54 – The Importance of Starting with the End in Mind

15:23 – Lever 4: Managing Scope Creep and Change Control

17:48 – Applying Scope Principles to Retainer Engagements

19:57 – Lever 5: Creating Leverage with Reusable Components and IP

22:53 – Lever 6: Implementing Automations and AI

26:01 – Four Habits to Systemize Profitability

29:12 – Closing Thoughts: Profitability is a Team Effort

Notable Quotes

"Gross margin is the revenue that you receive as a company, minus the cost of delivery... that metric is an indicator of how efficiently you're doing the work." — Sei-Wook Kim on the definition of gross margin.

"If you have way too many team members for the amount of work that you have... idle hours where someone has zero billability really crushes your margin really quickly." — Sei-Wook Kim on the impact of poor utilization.

"Vague scopes are one of the biggest liabilities when it comes to profitability, because you can get taken for a ride as an agency if you're super vague about what you're actually delivering." — Peter Kang on the danger of unclear scopes.

"Building a library of reusable components frees up senior folks to do higher-value work. This is a huge part of why we beat the drum on specialization." — Peter Kang on how IP creates leverage and higher margins.

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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