If Your Agency Isn’t Tracking Time, You’re Basically Flying Blind
Interview: How to Use Operational Data to Improve Client Acquisition (with Kristen from Service Crowd)
Behind the Agency Podcast with Kristen — agency ops veteran and founder of Service Crowd (B2B marketing + rev ops provider ecosystem)
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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.
TL;DR – Key Takeaways
If you want more client acquisition with less chaos, start with the unsexy stuff: profitability + delivery data.
The #1 data source most agencies avoid: time tracking. Not for billing — for knowing what’s actually profitable.
Aim for 80% time tracking compliance. Perfect is a fantasy.
Track at client → project → task/SOW level so you can see where margins live (or die).
Most agencies undercount a huge cost: management time (PM, AM, senior oversight). That has to be included in true delivery cost.
Once you see “profitable projects,” the next move is simple: talk to those clients and steal their language for your positioning.
Agencies often say they sell “distinct offerings,” but their contracts are really staff augmentation (hours-for-pay). That kills pricing power.
A clean growth plan for agencies isn’t “take more work.” It’s say no to bad-fit work and double down on profitable + enjoyable + repeatable work.
Build a light system for CSAT and client interviews so you can spot happy clients, fix issues early, and generate proof.
🎙️ Meet the Guest
Kristen is an agency operations veteran who’s spent over a decade working with agencies and service providers. She’s the founder of Service Crowd (servicecrowd.io), a networked ecosystem of B2B marketing and revenue ops providers.
Her thing is the “backend” side of agency growth:
delivery economics
operational efficiency
client profitability
making sure you can grow without margin collapse
Kristen’s pitch is refreshing because she doesn’t pretend the spreadsheet stuff is glamorous. She just knows it’s the difference between a calm agency and a panic agency.
Episode Summary
1. Why “ops data” is actually a client acquisition topic
This was the framing I loved: Kristen isn’t talking about time tracking because she’s a hall monitor.
She’s saying: if you don’t know what’s profitable, you can’t confidently scale what works. And if you can’t scale what works, your “growth plan” becomes:
take whatever work shows up
over-serve to keep clients happy
burn out your team
and wonder why referrals dry up
In a services business, margins aren’t a nice-to-have. They’re the oxygen tank.
2. The big unlock: time tracking (done like an adult, not a perfectionist)
Kristen’s not asking for perfect compliance. She’s saying:
hit 80% and you’re already ahead of most agencies
Why it matters:
you can calculate profitability by client
by project
and even by task / SOW area
That’s how you find the real “best work.” Not the work you like talking about. The work that actually funds your business.
3. The cost most agencies pretend doesn’t exist: managing the work
This part is sneaky important.
A lot of agencies track “hands on keyboard” time… but ignore:
PM time
account management time
senior oversight time
“I had to jump in and fix it” time
Kristen’s point: if it takes 1 hour to manage 20 hours of delivery, that 1 hour belongs in the cost basis. Otherwise your margins are fake.
Analogy: it’s like pricing a restaurant dish based on ingredient cost while pretending the kitchen staff is free.
4. Bottom-up growth: build your next positioning from what’s already working
Kristen’s approach is bottom-up:
what are we already great at?
what’s profitable?
what creates happy clients?
what do employees actually enjoy delivering?
Then you build offers and client acquisition around that.
This is a useful antidote to the common agency habit of doing top-down brainstorming like:
“What if we offered AI strategy to everyone?”
Cool. But can you deliver it profitably and repeatedly? The spreadsheet knows.
5. The uncomfortable truth: a lot of “offerings” are really staff augmentation
Kristen called this out hard:
Agencies say they have “a distinct POV” and “clear services,” but their contracts often boil down to:
hours for pay
client directs the work
agency becomes interchangeable labor
Nothing wrong with staff augmentation if it’s profitable and stable… but it’s a brutal place to build differentiation and pricing power.
And it makes it harder to learn what you’re actually successful at, because every engagement turns into a messy pile of random tasks.
6. What to do after you find profitable projects: talk to clients (and steal their words)
Once your data points to “these projects make money,” the next step is not a fancy workshop.
It’s:
talk to those clients
ask what outcome they were buying
ask what they’d say you’re “really good at”
and mirror their language in your marketing
Kristen and I aligned here: great positioning is assembled from client language, not invented in a vacuum.
7. CSAT + client interviews aren’t fluff — they’re operational systems
Kristen’s take on CSAT was practical:
use automated surveys at key moments (post-kickoff, mid-engagement, end/churn)
the extremes respond (very happy / very unhappy), which is still useful
use it to catch issues early and identify advocates
Then you convert:
happy client → reference → evidence (case study/story) → advocacy
And even if legal blocks public case studies, the interview still gives you:
better offer language
better positioning
better delivery insights
8. The “where should I start?” order
Kristen’s suggested start sequence, cleaned up:
Audit time tracking fidelity (esp. founder time — founders are usually the worst offenders)
Add management/oversight cost into true delivery cost
Calculate actual billable rate vs effective billable rate (over/under-servicing shows up here)
If your systems aren’t ready: do client interviews + employee interviews to find repeatable “home run” work
Use findings to tighten offers and say “no” faster
Notable Quotes
“Time tracking isn’t important just for billing.”
“80% compliant is miles better than most people are doing.”
“A lot of agencies think they have distinct offerings… but they’re really selling hours.”
“Talk to the clients. Always talk to the clients.”
Learn More / Get in Touch
LinkedIn → Kristen (search her name)
Website → servicecrowd.io
Service Crowd Consulting → “Agency Consulting Services” page on the site
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