Why Delegating is a Must for Growing Your Agency

Answer emails and calls. Open Slack and get lost in messages. Create a presentation to pitch to investors. Clean up the office (if you have any). Interview a potential employee. Answer the questions of a new hire. Eat instant noodles. Calculate MRR. Review and adjust expenses. Source leads. Jump on a call with a potential client. Answer emails…

This might be an average day for a typical startup founder or small business owner. At least, you have to do a lot by yourself early on. While scaling, you have to learn how to delegate. That’s where the question of doing or leading comes into play.

Michael Maximoff, a co-founder of Belkins, shares how, in less than seven years, he and his partner Vlad built a self-operational agency with 280+ employees on board and a stable 20–30% yearly growth rate. This became possible, particularly, due to his leading by example and nurturing new leaders.

Here are a few insights from the journey Michael dropped in his “From Zero to Agency Hero” newsletter.

Why You Should Be a Generalist

Sam Altman articulated it perfectly:

“I think that the best founders are generalists all the way through. Maybe you’re a specialist in a particular technology that you develop, but when you transition from building a product to building a company, you have to specialize in generalization starting that day and never look back.”

Basically, you should understand:

• How your company operates
• Its strengths and weaknesses
• Resources you need and why you need them

To map the strategy, you must learn to see the bigger picture. Also, if you can do something yourself, you’ll understand how it works. This will help you identify if you move in the right direction and prevent possible risks or issues.

Here’s the minimum you must know well:

• Sales: Close the first clients, and only then hire an SE to work with you. Thus, you’ll know what your clients need and what pain points they have.
• Marketing: Try different channels and build your go-to-market strategy. Then, hire a marketing specialist to execute it. No one will be better than you at articulating your value proposition from the start.
• Delivery: Deliver the service to your client and create the process. When you’ve got it, hire an SDR, designer, content creator, or whoever makes up your delivery team.
• Client management: First, you care for each client while working with them. Bring on account managers only after you build the delivery team.
• Finance: Figure out your P&L, budget, and spending, and then find a finance specialist to do this for you.
• Recruitment: You are the best interviewer, talent source, and screener. Build hard skill tests and check if the culture and values match yours. Upon that, onboard a recruitment specialist to polish your hiring process.

Why Focus on Leadership

Even if you’re an experienced generalist, you can’t do everything yourself as your business starts growing. Instead, you should empower your employees to take more responsibility and promote the talented ones.

Trust the job to professionals, build the right team, and bring great minds together. Thus, one day they can work successfully without needing your approval. Here’s how Michael puts it:

“When someone asks what my job was, I’d always say it was leadership development, HR, and people. Because, really, in professional services, people are the success factor and the root of problems. If a company succeeds, this means the right people are doing the right things, creating value. This is true for all industries, but especially in professional services. When something isn't working in your agency, it’s probably also because of the people.”

Of course, not every employee will be ready to take more responsibility. You can try to spot those with leadership potential by thinking of them as a “barrel” or “ammunition,” as Chris Orlob categorizes them. “Barrels” are those who can work independently, while “ammunition” are those, who need instructions on what to do and how to do it.

Initially, “ammunition” people may be enough if you are a “barrel.” They will enable you to:

• Unload your calendar and delegate some tasks while still being deeply engaged with the clients.
• Bring on people with less experience, allowing you to move faster with hiring or put less pressure on the payroll.
• Learn all aspects and nuances of your business and master them, laying the groundwork for future growth.

After all, those with the potential to become a “barrel” will stay with you and become great managers.

Rookie Mistakes While Building the Team & How to Avoid Them

Less experienced agency owners tend to:

• Hire big guns too soon. Instead of searching for a head of sales to build your entire sales force, start with a single “ammunition” like an SDR to work under your leadership.
• Keep doing everything themselves. This stunts growth. Learn to delegate effectively while setting clear goals and expectations.
• Lack of a structured recruitment process. To find the right fit, you need a detailed job and candidate description, test assignments, a 2–3-step interview, and a probation period.

After you’ve built a thought-out recruitment process, develop clear goals and expectations for each new hire. Comprehensive documentation will help you identify who isn't a good fit during the probation. Take an example:

Goal: We should generate 20 new appointments to close 2 clients. We have to do this in 3 months. Realistically, you need a ramp-up:

• 1st month: 5 appointments
• 2nd month: 7 appointments
• 3rd month: 8 appointments

Expectations: I expect you to run tests on multiple channels, research and write great sales copies, reply to client messages within 1 hour, be available in the afternoons, provide daily updates, etc. 

Prioritize Your Hires If You’re a Solo Agency Owner

Here’s a specific order for bringing new team members on board if you run the business on your own:
 

This allows you to focus more on scaling delivery, then marketing, then sales.

At this point, you’ll probably have 5–10 people in delivery, 1–2 in biz dev/sales, and 1–2 in marketing. Logically, delivery will be the first department to shift from an ammunition to a barrel approach. Now you can bring someone from the market to manage your biggest delivery team.

Final Tips

1. Hold off on early promotions. Don't rush to promote your first hires to leadership roles (like a delivery manager) unless they clearly show leadership potential (“barrel” qualities).
2. Internal vs. external hires. Promoting from within can be great, but they might stick to established processes. Consider external hires to bring fresh perspectives and blend with your existing team’s knowledge.
3. Hiring for unestablished processes. Bringing in someone new to fix an undefined process is risky. It’s better to solidify the approach first to set them up for success.

Author Bio:

Michael Maximoff is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Belkins, an award-winning appointment-setting agency. With over a decade of experience in B2B sales and marketing, Michael is passionate about building teams and driving impactful growth. He pioneered multiple proprietary SaaS solutions and services and is a serial entrepreneur and investor at heart. He is the author of the "From Zero to Agency Hero" newsletter and hosts the Belkins Growth Podcast, where he shares insights on building service companies and scaling businesses.