Episode Details

What separates highly profitable agencies from those that constantly feel stretched?

For many agency founders, the answer isn't simply winning more clients or asking people to work harder. It's building better operational systems, improving resource planning, understanding the numbers behind the business and making more informed commercial decisions.

In this episode of The Fractional CFO Show, Adam Cooper sits down with Ryan McNamara, Global Operations Director at Rise at Seven, to explore how the agency transformed its utilisation from around 50% to 80% over a two-year period—and, more importantly, what other agencies can learn from that journey.

Ryan has spent his career building and improving operational systems across creative and digital agencies. Having founded his own business before moving into senior operations leadership, he understands both the entrepreneurial and operational challenges that agencies face as they grow.

Rather than discussing theory, Ryan shares the practical lessons learned from implementing operational change inside one of the UK's best-known agencies.

Together, Adam and Ryan explore why agency profitability is often driven by operational excellence rather than cost-cutting, why better resource planning creates better client outcomes, and why finance, operations and client services need to work together if agencies are to scale successfully.

One of the biggest themes throughout the conversation is changing how agencies think about utilisation.

Too often, utilisation is viewed purely as a finance metric or something used to monitor employee performance.

Ryan explains why that's the wrong approach.

Instead, utilisation should be viewed as an operational planning tool that helps agencies:

•  Deliver better work for clients 
•  Improve project profitability 
•  Make more informed hiring decisions 
•  Build stronger commercial awareness 
•  Increase operational efficiency 
•  Support sustainable agency growth 

Rather than creating pressure, accurate operational data should help leaders make better decisions and give teams the support they need to succeed.

In this episode we discuss:

•  How Rise at Seven increased agency utilisation from approximately 50% to 80%
•  Why improving utilisation takes time, consistency and leadership rather than quick fixes 
•  Why so many agencies struggle with utilisation, timesheets and operational discipline 
•  Why scheduling matters more than timesheets
•  The difference between measuring historical performance and planning future capacity 
•  How resource planning improves both agency profitability and client experience 
•  Using utilisation data to support pricing decisions and improve project profitability 
•  Understanding when work is under-scoped and when projects need to be repriced 
•  Why timesheets should never be used to "police" employees 
•  Creating a culture where operational information helps people rather than punishes them 
•  How accurate data improves training, coaching and professional development 
•  Using operational data to support recruitment and hiring decisions 
•  Why utilisation acts as an early warning system for future capacity challenges 
•  The relationship between capacity planning, resource allocation and commercial performance 
•  Bringing together finance, client services and operations to improve decision-making 
•  Why operational leadership is ultimately about people, not process 
•  How agency founders can introduce better planning without creating unnecessary bureaucracy 
•  Why processes should support outcomes rather than dictate behaviour 
•  The importance of understanding your financial numbers before adding operational complexity 
•  R