“In today’s world, with all the curveballs being thrown our way – by Governments, the economy, the media – if you’re in too much of the detail and the ‘doing’, there’s no way you can scale a business.”

There comes a time in every agency leader’s life when they must start creating the space to lead and not just do…

For some agencies, it’s written in stone from the day they launched. For others, it comes as a sudden realisation that your role is to lead the ‘long-term’ of the business.

But while preparing to scale will look very different depending on your business, there are some general rules of thumb to abide by. 

Here to deliver them is Domenica Di Lieto, CEO of Emerging Comms. 

“What I’ve done as a founder is create roles within a senior leadership team to take off the things I’m bad at. By doing that, when you have a hole in the business, you can then step into it – shape it, get it the way you want – and then you can find a leader for that division.”

Domenica says two things are paramount when it comes to mastering the growth ramp.

The first is the ability to delegate.

“I’ve found with smaller agencies that there is an inherent inability to delegate. I firmly believe that you have to stick to your strengths and delegate your weaknesses. But it’s also about the absolute must-haves for your business. For me, an FD had to come almost immediately.”

The second part is all about taking risks. 

“I’ve seen it over and over again – people spend so much time worrying about costs,” says Domenica. “They’ll say, ‘We can’t possibly bring somebody in to do that, we can’t afford it!’ But then they never do. And you talk to them a year later, and they’re still a two-man band. Three years later, they’re still the same.” 

“There has to be a certain sense of calculated risk. If you don’t have a healthy attitude to risk then you’ll never grow.”

In this month’s CEO Summit, Domenica will join us to share her story of stepping back from the day-to-day of working inside the business. She’ll tell us how she did it, who she hired and when, and the lessons she wished she’d learned the first time around. 

If you’re looking to take more of a strategic role within your own agency, Domenica’s advice is beyond valuable.