Score
We run The Ten Levers™ diagnostic across your leadership team, separately. Fifty statements, ten levers, one score out of 250. Where your answers differ most is usually where the real conversation starts.
Gellan Watt
The Ten Levers™ Transformation Programme
A fixed-term business model and change programme for agencies.
You already know you have weaknesses. This is the work that fixes it.
FOUNDER, UK AGENCY OF THE YEAR · GREW GROUP WITH HIS PARTNERS TO £60M WITH NO INVESTMENT OR DEBT
The problem
There's never just one reason why an agency isn't reaching its full potential or value
Most agencies do not stall because the work is bad. They stall because one or two parts of the business quietly cap the value and restricts the progress and performance of everything else, and it is rarely the part anyone is looking at.
It can be a mix of anything. Positioning that nobody outside the building could repeat. Pricing that has not moved in three years. A new business pipeline that needs a lifeline. A founder who cannot be away for a fortnight without the place slowing down. Value that all walks out of the door at six o'clock, with nothing else that makes the business special and unique. A fear of hiring big. Over-reliance on one big client. Fear of the future.
You're not alone if you keep hearing about business model design, value charging, driving margins, and finding bigger and better clients, productisation, programmes, and IP (the list is endless) but don't know where to start.
None of that is solved by working harder. Only smarter. None of it is solved by a day in a room with sticky notes or asking yourself what's wrong.
These are structural problems. They need structural work, done inside a defined period, led by someone who has done it before. Because it's impossible to read the label from inside the jar.
The weakest levers cap the rest. Strong levers do not average out a weak one. They just make the gap more obvious.
How it works
Four steps. Fixed term. A number at each end.
Prioritise
We agree which levers are actually capping the business, and in what order. Not all ten. The one, or two, or four that matter.
Work
A fixed-term programme of sessions, decisions and implementation against those levers. The work happens between the sessions as well as in them.
Re-score
We run the same diagnostic at the end. The score moved or it did not. If not, we have to understand why your decisions aren't landing during implementation.
The three tiers
Choose the size of the change you want to see
Sprint
30 days
For one or two levers doing acute damage right now.
- The Ten Levers™ diagnostic across your leadership team
- Priorities agreed in week one
- Focused work on the one or two most damaging levers
- Written recommendations, implemented rather than just delivered
- Re-score at day 30
Best for an agency that knows exactly what is broken and needs it fixed quickly.
Core
90 days
Sustained work across your top three or four priority levers.
- Everything in Sprint
- A structured programme across three or four levers
- Regular working sessions with the leadership team
- Implementation support between sessions
- Re-score at day 90, compared against your opening score
Best for an agency that is functioning but not compounding, and wants that to change inside a quarter.
Enterprise
120 days
Full structural transformation across most or all ten levers.
- Everything in Core
- Work across most or all ten levers
- Board-level involvement where the governance needs it
- Deeper implementation support, including with your wider team
- Re-score at day 120, with a plan for the year that follows
Best for an agency preparing for sale, investment, succession or a genuine step change.
"He's like part of the team, and the change in proposition and business model changed everything for us."
"Our new proposition has landed and we've never had more enquiries."
Every programme is priced per engagement, because the work depends on which levers and how deep they go. Tell me your score and I will tell you which tier fits.
What you get
Decisions, not options
- A leadership team that agrees on what the problem actually is, often for the first time
- Decisions made, rather than choices presented
- Work that happens between sessions, not only inside them
- A number at the start and a number at the end
- Someone who has built, merged, run and exited agencies, rather than someone who has read about it
- Make more money and increase your margins
- Win bigger and better clients
- Start enjoying again, life's too short
- Create an agency that people want to buy (and you want to keep)
What this is not
Four things it isn't
Not a workshop. A workshop is a day. Everyone leaves energised and by the following Thursday the business is running exactly as it was. This is a programme, with work between the sessions.
Not a retainer. It has a defined end date and a defined outcome. You are not buying my availability. You are buying a change.
Not a report. Nobody needs another document to put in a drawer. The work is the deliverable.
Not just coaching. This is about changing the business, and behaviours. Not about how you feel about the business. Those are different jobs, and both are useful, but this is full transformation.
The proof
Twenty years of finding the same ten problems
£60Million (£90M Today)
Group revenue, built with no investment and no debt
30+
Transformations, Repositioning, Troubleshoots and Turnarounds, UK, EU, and US, independent and network agencies
TRUSTED BY THE BEST
By some of the fastest growing independent agencies in the UK.
Agency of the Year
Founded a UK Agency of the Year and Top 10 UK creative agency
I founded an agency that became a Top 10 UK Creative Agency and UK Agency of the Year. I merged that business, and with my partners grew it into one of the UK's largest independent groups before we sold. I have chaired boards, sat on a global agency network board, and been a Chair, CEO, Chief Creative Officer and Chief Commercial Officer. Since then I have advised, bought, sold, chaired and invested in agencies and brands in the UK, the United States, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia.
I have personally made most of the mistakes that can be made. I've had the chats, tried the things, made U-turns, rebuilt boards and teams, processes and pricing. It cost me as I made them, it cost me at exit, and mostly it wasted time. That is why I can see problems and work through them fast. I don't want you to make the mistakes I made.
The diagnostic is new. The pattern recognition behind it is not. I built the ten levers out of twenty years of finding the same ten things wrong, in my own businesses and in other people's. The score just gets us there in ten minutes instead of three months.
Other ways in
Not ready for a programme?
Fast TrackA two or four hour one-to-one for founders and agency leaders. Preceded by a short diagnostic, followed by written recommendations you can actually implement. From £500.Fast TrackWorkshopsHalf or full day with your leadership team. Bold Move, Proposition Reset, Exit Readiness, Pricing for Value, or Pitch Doctor. From £3,000.WorkshopsBoard SeatOngoing involvement, one to three days a month, plus phone and email between. Advisor or non-executive, shaped around what the business needs.Board Seat
Let's get started
Start with the number
Take The Ten Levers™ diagnostic and send me your score. Fifty statements, ten minutes, and a clear answer on which part of the business is capping the rest.
Then we can have a useful conversation rather than a general one.
"We trust you. Everything you say lands and makes an impact."