The Pillar Problem: Why agencies fail when they try to scale

Let me explain.

I’ve spent years helping digital agencies optimise their delivery, project management, and operations. And time and time again, I’ve seen businesses make the same mistake when trying to scale. They focus on the next big thing before securing what’s already working.

This is the story of a business that had a solid foundation but lost sight of what mattered. And it’s a lesson every agency owner should take seriously.

The Pillars of a Business

I once worked in a business - let’s just say I won’t name names - but they had a really strong model. They had built a solid team around it: a sales team, a delivery team, and people working all over the world to keep it running. It was fantastic.

But it wasn’t sexy.

And that’s often the case - boring businesses are usually the ones making the most profit because they’re predictable, which is a nice place to be.

The Push for Change

The owners of this business wanted to grow to a point where they could sell it. But a boring business isn’t always the easiest thing to sell. So, they tried a few things.

First, they brought in different management to shake things up and boost profitability. Didn’t really work.

Then, they decided to transition from a service-based business to a SaaS model. Instead of having teams deliver the work, they wanted customers to self-serve via a platform.

This wasn’t a bad idea. They invested heavily in building a platform that could handle a significant chunk of their existing services, making things faster, more profitable, and scalable.

It was a good plan - until it wasn’t.

The Pillar Problem

A new CEO came in and decided to move the whole business towards SaaS.

At the time, I was heading up delivery, and I remember having a conversation with this new CEO. I said:

“Look, here’s the analogy. Right now, we’ve got a strong pillar - that’s our existing service-based business. The SaaS business isn’t quite standing on its own yet. If we start siphoning resources away from the first pillar before the second one is ready, we’re just going to end up with two incomplete pillars.”

They nodded, they understood. But they had a plan. They were convinced that if they pushed ahead, they’d take a short-term loss, and it would all work out.

Not my decision, not my area of expertise. So we carried on.

The Downward Spiral

Over the next few months, they hired more salespeople, more developers, pumped resources into the SaaS platform - which still hadn’t launched. Meanwhile, my team in the service business stayed stagnant. We weren’t growing because we weren’t getting the investment we needed.

Any time I pushed for more resources, I got the same response:

“No, we can’t afford that. We’re investing in SaaS.”

Fine.

Then, something unexpected happened.

A pandemic.

Crisis Mode

The economy shifted overnight. The service business took a hit - our small-to-medium clients panicked and stopped spending. The big clients carried on, but they cut their budgets.

As for the SaaS business? Well, it was still untested. And now, the very customers we relied on to validate it were in survival mode.

So, what did they do? They decided to spin up a third pillar: Enterprise.

The plan was to focus all efforts on serving big clients - dedicated teams, high-value contracts. And to fund this, they moved all resources from both the service and SaaS businesses into enterprise.

Most of my team, myself included, were made redundant.

The Aftermath

Looking back, what happened was clear:

• They had a solid pillar that worked (service).
• They started building a new pillar (SaaS), but it wasn’t ready yet.
• Then, when things got tough, they pulled resources from both and built a third pillar (enterprise), which was completely untested.

You can probably guess how that turned out.

The Lesson for Digital Agencies

If you’re running an agency, this is a crucial lesson. Your business needs to be built on strong, scalable foundations. If you’re looking to expand into new services or build a product, that’s great - but don’t neglect what’s already working.

I see this all the time with agencies. They get excited about new revenue streams - SaaS products, training programmes, new service offerings - before they’ve optimised and stabilised their core delivery processes. And what happens? The core business stagnates, client satisfaction dips, and the whole thing risks crumbling.

The key is simple: Build one solid pillar before you start constructing the next.

This is exactly the kind of challenge I help agencies navigate. Scaling doesn’t mean throwing resources at the next big thing and hoping it works. It means optimising your operations, ensuring your delivery is bulletproof, and then expanding in a way that is sustainable and profitable.

If you want to grow your agency without making the same mistakes this business did, let’s talk. I can help you build a business that isn’t just exciting on paper but is actually scalable, profitable, and built to last.