At some point, your agency stopped being the thing you built and became the thing you carry.
Coaching and support for agency founders. Better decisions, clearer thinking and a business that works without you at the centre of everything.
You’re probably doing well enough that no one around you would guess how it actually feels. The business is growing or steady or just busy. You’re making it work.
But you’re making too many decisions alone. You’re the one everyone comes to, and you’re not sure when that stopped feeling like a good thing. You’ve started wondering whether the business is going in the right direction, or whether you have the expertise to lead it there.
It’s not a crisis. It’s more like a slow, steady pressure that doesn’t seem to ease, however well things go.
That’s the point most founders don’t talk about. The business looks fine from the outside. Inside, it’s a different story.
WHY COACHING, WHY NOW
Most founders who come to me have never worked with a coach. A few are quietly sceptical about what that means. They’ve heard it involves a lot of questions and not many answers, and they’re not sure they’ve got time for that.
That’s a fair read of some coaching. But it’s not what I do.
I have 35 years of agency experience. I’ve run agencies, sold them, bought them, sat on their boards and watched what happens when founders get the big decisions right and when they don’t.
When you’re working with me, you get that experience in the room. I’ll ask you hard questions when that’s what you need. I’ll also tell you what I think, push back when I disagree and say the thing that nobody else around you is saying. I’ll also let you know when you’ve nailed it, when you need to trust your instincts and push harder.
Most of my clients describe it as having someone completely in their corner. Someone who knows the industry, has no agenda and will be straight with them in a way that their team, their partners and their shareholders can’t always be.
That’s what I mean by coaching. If it sounds more like having a very good advisor, that’s fine too.
WORKING WITH ANDY
Sessions are one hour each week. That builds momentum. We work through the decisions you’re avoiding, the dynamics you can’t quite see and the moves you know you need to make but haven’t, pragmatically and with the business always front of mind.
Our work starts with the Founder Portrait. It’s a focused diagnostic that builds a clear picture of how you lead, how others experience you and where the gaps are between the two. It’s honest, occasionally surprising and often the most revealing conversation a founder has had about themselves in years. We don’t spend months getting to know each other. We go deep quickly and the changes start immediately.
There’s no syllabus. The agenda comes from what’s actually happening in your business and changes as you do.
Darren Lassiter
Founder, Arthur London
“A lot of advisors and coaches tell you what you want to hear, or ask you questions until you figure it out yourself. Andy does neither. He’s direct, he has opinions and he shares them. He also knows agencies inside out, so his straight talking comes with real context. It’s not just confidence, it’s experience. I trust his judgement and that’s not something I say lightly.”
Sadie Groom
Founder, Bubble
“Running an agency is isolating in ways that are hard to explain to people who haven’t done it. Andy gets that. He’s run agencies and knows the pressures that don’t make it into the board pack. Our conversations feel like talking to someone who’s been where you are and has something useful to say about it.”
Nick Farrar
Founder, Shaped By
“I was solving problems I shouldn’t have been near and avoiding the thinking I needed to do. Working with Andy has changed that. Through a rebrand, a new market and becoming sole director, he’s helped me see what I should be doing, what I should stop, and what kind of leader the business needed.”
Nick Dudley-Williams
Founder, Barfly
“A co-founder buyout is one of the most personally and commercially complicated things a founder can go through. Andy helped me separate the emotional from the practical and make decisions I’m still confident about. Both sides came out of it well. That doesn’t happen by accident..”
George Owen
Founder, Itch
“Andy has been integral to our agency’s growth. An inspiring coach and mentor offering encouragement and guidance on both high level strategy and the practical day to day. Very few people can be called life changing. Andy is one of them..”
James Hilton
CEO, M&C Saatchi
“I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for the business. I feel the business is on a far better footing since the first session.”
WHY ANDY?
Andy Brown has spent 35 years in the agency world. He’s run agencies, bought them, sold them and sat on the boards of dozens more. For the last eight years he’s worked exclusively with agency founders as a board advisor, non-executive director and business coach, helping them through growth, leadership transition and exit. He knows what the job actually involves, the commercial pressure, the personnel decisions, the moments where the right call isn’t obvious and nobody around you can tell you what it is.
He’s also the author of The Emotional Overdraft, an Amazon number one bestseller on founder leadership that won the Business Book of the Year. The framework it introduced is one of the tools he brings to his coaching work.
He currently chairs one of the Agency Hackers founder boards, working with agency leaders across the UK.
His clients have included founders at every stage, from fast-growth agencies finding their feet to established businesses navigating exits, leadership transitions and co-founder situations.
If you want to know whether this is the right fit, the best next step is a conversation.
Do something now
If any of this sounds familiar, the pressure, the decisions, the sense that the way you’ve been leading is due a rethink, it’s worth a conversation.
No pitch, no programme to sell you. Just an honest discussion about where you are and whether working together makes sense.