Growth is the goal for many agencies, but as your team hits certain size thresholds, your structure, systems, and workflows can start to break down.
Marcel Petitpas, CEO of Parakeeto, has spent years helping agencies around the world clean up their operations, tighten up forecasting, and build financial systems that actually support scale.
In this episode, Marcel shares what breaks as agencies grow, and how small optimizations can make the difference between momentum and mayhem. If your team’s growing fast, but your numbers aren’t adding up, this one’s for you.
Here’s what we dive into:
- The critical headcount thresholds where agency ops tend to break – and what to do at each stage
- The metrics that really matter when you’re trying to scale profitably
- How to build a top-down forecasting model that’s simple, fast, and actually useful
- How to align your leadership team around a shared, consistent view of performance
- Why data hygiene matters, and how to balance accuracy vs precision to help you make smarter, faster decisions
Marcel also breaks down the operational traps that create noise, slow growth, and kill clarity. Plus what you can do right now to lead with better insight.scope, or exploring performance-based models, this episode is full of sharp, practical insights to help you price smarter and scale with confidence.
Key Takeaways:
- Agency growing pains follow a pattern. Most structural breakdowns happen at specific headcount thresholds, where new layers of management and accountability are needed. Knowing what to expect helps you stay ahead of the curve.
- Bottom-up forecasting is slow and overly detailed. Executive-level planning needs speed and flexibility, not 500 task-level updates. A simple top-down model is more effective for scenario planning and resource decisions.
- Accurate data beats precise data. You don’t need perfect time tracking or hyper-detailed estimates to lead well. You just need clean, structured data that reflects reality closely enough to support smart decisions.
- Misaligned metrics create confusion. If different leaders define “utilization” or “capacity” in different ways, you’re not speaking the same language. Making the effort to align will save time and frustration in the long run.
- Clarity starts with a shared framework. Defining the metrics, data sources, and reporting cadence upfront creates a common foundation for faster, clearer decisions at every level.
- Overcomplicated time tracking kills compliance. If your team needs to click through 10 layers to log time, they’ll avoid it. Simplify your system so the data you need is easy to give.
- Profitability lives in a few core numbers. Track utilization rate, average billable rate, and cost per hour, then tie those to your delivery margin. These metrics reveal where money is made (or lost).
Additional Resources:
Follow Marcel on LinkedIn
Follow Harv on LinkedIn
Marcel’s Free Agency Profitability Toolkit
Parakeeto’s Foundations Course
The Agency Profit Podcast: Spotify and Apple
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