Why Agencies Fire Before They Fix
The hidden economics of layoffs and why scope creep, not talent, is killing margins.
I’m a designer at heart, so of course, what I care about most is the creative output. I want to see a beautifully designed world. Ads that inspire. Work that moves me. Experiences that pull me out of the ordinary and drop me somewhere extraordinary, intentionally, thoughtfully.
But as a business leader, I know that life isn’t that pretty. Agencies don’t exist to make art. We’re here to sell, to grow, to win. And the brutal truth is that if you want to protect the creative, you have to protect the bottom line first.
When an agency is hitting its numbers, everything is great. Leadership fund all the perks, celebrates balance, and talks big game about agency culture. Creative teams are well-staffed and resourced. Risk-taking is rewarded because there’s room to push the work — and the clients — harder. The shop submits for awards, celebrates its talent, and the creatives, the real product-makers, briefly feel valued.
When the money is not aligned with the goals, all hell breaks loose. Perks evaporate. Hiring freezes hit. Desperation creeps in. And when the books are bleeding? Leadership does what leadership does: they take your “work family” out back, and you show up the next morning pretending the building doesn’t feel emptier. The people left behind are too overworked to grieve. Clients start sensing the chaos and pile on more last-minute demands. Everyone is stretched thin, miserable, and (evidently) replaceable.
Here’s the part agencies don’t like to say out loud: layoffs rarely fix the problem. They’re a band-aid for deeper dysfunction, and most of that dysfunction starts with operations, not talent.
I used to believe the solution was simple: do killer work, attract bigger clients, and the money will follow. But the longer I’ve been in this industry, the more I understand that glamour doesn't bring stability. It’s about consistent, boring discipline. The same way eating clean and sleeping enough does more for your body than any fad diet, the unsexy stuff saves agencies:
Clean scopes.
Controlled burn.
Workflows that actually work.
Take scope creep. A scope is sacred. It’s a contract, a boundary, and a blueprint for profitability. But how often do we undermine it before the first kickoff? We underbid to win the pitch. We promise everything to everyone. We pretend we’ll figure it out later, and “later” ends up being two months of unpaid overtime and a creative team ready to walk.
Even when scopes are healthy at the start, most agencies let clients chip away at them. A round of extra concepts here, a few “quick tweaks” there, until the margin is gone. It’s natural — clients will always want more — but that’s when we’re supposed to be the adults in the room. Saying “yes to everything” to keep clients happy isn’t client service; it’s financial suicide.
We should be attaching a price to every out-of-scope request, every single time. When everyone holds that line, clients eventually learn that any work costs money, and that boundaries aren’t negotiable.
Creatives need to lead that charge. We’re the ones closest to the brief. We know when the ask is shifting. We should be the first to flag scope creep in real time, not just complain after the all-nighters.
We also need to help by embracing and quickly implementing tools that help us do more with less. Less cost and less time. And no, I’m not talking about being ok with spitting out soulless AI slop. I’m talking about using leveraging AI for what it is; a creative partner, an intern and a personal assistant that never sleeps, for almost no cost. I like to bounce ideas of to ChatGPT like I would with a creative parner. AI is great at the creative bounce. This way every creative can become a mini army. That’s leverage.
And we need to pivot faster. Build faster MVPs, fail faster, and get approvals in days, not weeks. Wasted time kills profit.
Of course, you can't fix what you can't measure so agencies can do way better about tracking all sorts of data, in real time, accurately. But that is way beyond my scope to figure out how to do that. I believe this is whitin AI's sweetspot and we'll see a comprehensive tool appear in the near furuture. Sorry Monday and Asana, you just ain't it.
If we start solving these operational leaks — owning scope, tightening workflows, using smarter tools, and moving faster — maybe we’ll finally stop sacrificing our “work spouses” to the make-my-books-look-good-pronto gods every time the quarter turns ugly.
You might say I'm a dreamer, but 'm not the only one.