SO, WHAT’S IN STORE
IN July 2025?

📣 Please note, these events are for Agency Hackers’ members only.

If your agency isn’t a member yet, get in touch with Anne or sign up here.

Event key:

🟥 Interview
🩵 Presentation
🟣 Demo/workshop

ALL our sessions are interactive, so cameras on and get your questions ready to ask!

OPERATIONS MASTERMIND: How Can You Prioritise When Everything Feels Urgent?

⏰ 11am, Wednesday 2nd July 2025

When Glen Duncan worked as the chief operating officer for a digital product agency, he attended meetings he would refer to as “the gunfight”. “I came in with something that could save us 20 hours of admin a week – a clear win. But it didn’t even make the sprint.”
At first, he felt like his suggestion was too good an opportunity to miss. After all, when you work in operations, everything feels urgent – especially something with such a clear, quantifiable impact. Then Glen had a realisation: “Not everything gets solved. And that’s OK. That’s strategy.”
In this session, Glen will explain what it really means to “choose inefficiency” – and why letting a few wins fall by the wayside can actually help you deliver bigger, better outcomes. You’ll learn how to identify your highest-value work, protect your energy, and shift your mindset from fixing everything to leading with focus.

CLIENT SERVICES MASTERMIND: How Can You Ensure Your Briefs Are Covering All Bases?

⏰ 11am, Tuesday 8th July 2025

KPIs are met, the marketing contact is happy – by all accounts the campaign is a success. Until someone from the client’s sales team joins the debrief and says: “This wasn’t what we needed.”
For Darcie Thompson-Fields, client services director at B2B events agency Chief Nation, this kind of scenario kept cropping up – she knew something had to change. But what? Her team were following briefs to the letter, and the problem wasn’t in the delivery. Darcie realised that while the briefs weren’t broken, they also weren’t going deep enough.
If you’re tired of briefs that don’t quite hit the mark, post-campaign surprises, or constantly realigning mid-project, this session is for you. Darcie will share the practical, step-by-step structure she uses to get clients aligned from day one – even when they’re siloed, vague, or too busy to talk.

AI WHISPERERS: What Should You Do When Clients Ask About AI?

⏰ 11am, Wednesday 9th July 2025

“Can you do AI?” If your clients aren’t already asking you this question, they soon will be. So when they do inevitably ask the question, what should you say? Or more importantly, what should you show them? For Andy Nicol, managing director of Sputnik Digital, these questions proved to be a turning point for his agency.
Despite there being no guaranteed return, Andy decided to take the plunge and build AI prototypes – without a brief or a budget. “We knew it was possible, and we wanted to be able to show clients what we could do – not just talk about it,” he says. “Sometimes the best way to move things forward is to just build something and see where it takes you. When we’re designing anything now, we always think about where AI can fit in.”
In this session, Andy will share how his team tackled the “Do you do AI?” question by jumping in feet first.

MARKETING & NEW BIZ MASTERMIND: How Can You Balance Six-Figure Clients with Smaller Projects?

⏰ 11am, Wednesday 16th July 2025

Big clients are exciting, but what happens to the smaller ones that still keep your studio ticking? At Huddle Creative, client lead Nicole Posner is working on how to balance both.
“We’re still taking on £15k–£20k projects, but only if there’s a clear reason – like future opportunities to grow the account – or if it’s creatively exciting,” she says. “And we’ve become much more granular in how we scope them.”
It’s a shift that’s working. But while Huddle is now catching more of these white whales on a regular basis, they haven’t walked away from the smaller stuff. In fact, they’ve had to get laser-focused on managing that balance. If you’re scaling up and struggling to manage the mix, this session will show you how to make both ends of the spectrum work.

How Can You Protect Your Agency from Scams and Cyber Threats?

⏰ 11am, Thursday 17th July 2025

Scams are everywhere, and they’re getting harder to spot. From phishing emails to fake invoices, it’s easy to fall for a scam if you’re not paying attention. Ralph Harrison, sales and marketing director at Cubit Technology – and Agency Hackers’ Recommended Partner for all things IT – wants to show the industry how to spot the warning signs before it’s too late.
“Trust is good, but not from an IT perspective,” he warns. “If a house gets burgled, the first thing the owner does is install better locks and alarms. Don’t wait to be hacked, prevent it. Make your business a harder target and they’ll focus on the easier ones.”
In this session, Ralph will take you through practical tips and show you how to turn every member of your team into a ‘human firewall’ against scams.

HR & PEOPLE MASTERMIND: How Can You Build a Culture of Proactive Performance Management?

⏰ 11am, Tuesday 22nd July 2025

“Nine times out of ten, when a client brings me in, it’s because they’ve reached their wits’ end with someone – but when I dive in, they’ve actually done nothing about it.” This is what Rhian Peebles, founder of HR consultancy, The Sitch, faces on a regular basis.
“It isn’t about being reactive,” Rhian explains. “It’s about creating regular habits that make performance conversations normal and part and parcel of the job – not just something you do when someone’s in trouble.”
Rhian has developed a framework for proactive people management, built around their practical rituals and smart accountability. If you’re looking at ways to make your performance management more proactive within your agency, look no further.

CFO SURGERY: How Can You Make Your Agency’s Finances Safer?

⏰ 2pm, Tuesday 29th July 2025

Late payments are nothing new – but the real issue? Most agencies set themselves up to fail from the start. Whether it’s risky payment terms, over-reliance on project completion, or failing to build a cash buffer, Rory Spence has seen too many agencies flirting with financial chaos.
“We’ve seen agencies agree to 50% on completion – and then act surprised when they don’t get paid,” says Rory, head of commercial at The Wow Company. “More than one in ten agencies only have a month’s overheads in the bank. That’s incredibly high risk.”
In this session, Rory will lift the lid on how the smartest agencies are managing their money – and how to put payment structures, pricing models, and planning processes in place before cash flow becomes a crisis.

How Do You Balance Account Management vs. Account Growth?

⏰ 11am, Wednesday 30th July 2025

It’s one thing to keep your clients happy. It’s another to grow those relationships and drive more revenue from the work you’re already doing. For many agencies, account growth is left to chance.
But for Helen Knight, founder of Creative Business Brain, it’s all about growing your confidence, habits, and thinking in order to create intentional, consistent account growth. “Most people just aren’t shown how to do the growth side of things,” Helen explains. “And it’s really normal, so people shouldn’t feel bad about it.
She believes sales doesn’t need to feel forced or unnatural – in fact, the best account growth “isn’t about selling at all”. As Helen says, “It’s actually all about listening.” doesn’t even feel like selling. In this session, Helen will guide us through the practical mindset shifts and behaviours that help creative teams stop waiting for growth and start creating it – one conversation at a time.

SO, WHAT’S IN STOREIN July 2025?

SO, WHAT’S IN STORE
IN July 2025?