91% of agency leaders expect AI to shrink agency headcount as the value moves to senior work. This month, an agency founder in their 18th year told us which seats they're keeping.
"You have what's core," they said. "And in my world, what I believe is core now is sales, client relationships and strategy."
They've run agencies through the dot-com crash, 2008, and Covid. They called this the biggest change yet.
The enemy: the Function Chart
Most agencies were built the same way, and plenty of tech companies too.
→ You need creative, so you hire a creative director
→ Put them on the leadership team
→ and they hire a team underneath.
→ Then search. Then social. Then ops.
Call it the Function Chart. Every function gets a head, every head gets a team, and payroll grows whether revenue does or not.
A survey of 225 US agency leaders found 57% have already slowed or paused entry-level hiring. The bottom of the chart is going first.
Where founders go wrong
When the old chart stops working, the usual fix is to cut people and absorb the work yourself. That gets you a smaller chart and a founder who's always on.
The better move is to keep the seats that only you can fill, then hire people to run everything around them.
What it looks like when it works
A marketing founder we worked with had 200,000 newsletter readers and no hours left. He was on client calls, writing strategy, producing content, and clearing admin, often into the weekend.
He kept the strategy and the voice for himself. We placed an Operations Manager from Serbia who rebuilt his onboarding from scratch, and new media buyers and content writers got client-ready in half the time. A small remote team grew around her.
The business crossed seven figures within 10 months, and he stopped working weekends. "I would not have scaled to seven figures without Go Carpathian," he told us.
"But a new salesperson can't sell what we do"
Then you've been hiring salespeople the wrong way.
Most founders hire a rep off a resume and a good interview, then spend three months finding out whether they can sell. We find that out before you meet them.
Every sales candidate we send you has already been vetted by our team and run through a live sales roleplay. Then you get on a call and test them yourself. Give them your toughest objection and see how they handle it.
By the time you hire, you've already heard them sell. Day one goes into learning your offer, because whether they can close is already settled. It's why half our clients hire one of the first candidates we show them.
For that hire, we'd recommend South Africa first: fluent English, workable US hours, and people who treat sales as a career rather than a stepping stone.
The chart on the other side
Picture three boxes with your name in them, and a team around them that does the work without you in the room. Your best hours go back to strategy and clients, and payroll follows the work, not a list of departments.
If this sounds like your situation, reply to this email or book a call below.
>>>> Book Your Free Call <<<<
Until next time,
The Go Carpathian Team
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