On Saturday we talked about how your job isn’t doing the thing. (The thing might be designing, writing, creating campaigns, storytelling, whatever it was that you were good at that you sold to clients to get the agency started!)

Your job is to build the system. Your job is to create the container, the way the thing gets done. Every day, every hour you spend working in your business, delivering services to clients, is time you’re not spending building your system.

And that system is what’s going to enable your business to grow.

If your time and attention is needed for the clients to have a great experience with your company, your growth is limited. There’s only so much of you, and you are most likely spending all of it already!

But I like doing the thing.

I know you started this business because you like doing the thing. It’s fun for you, and you are good at it.

Giving it up is scary! There’s security in the idea that if this endeavor goes belly-up, you can always go back to the thing and make a living. If you stop doing it, your skills might grow dull.

But if you don’t stop doing it, you’re a freelancer, not an agency owner. There’s nothing wrong with that; own it!

But if you want to grow your agency…

Start watching for it.

When you get sucked into doing the thing, you have to recognize that as a problem! It is a failure of the system you’ve built, and you need to set out to fix that problem so that it doesn’t happen again!

• The designer didn’t nail the brief! Who can help improve their skills?
• The AM couldn’t deliver the creative in a way that the client trusted them? What do they need to deliver better the next time?
• I had to stay late to get the proposal out the door. Where can I find help so that I never write another proposal?

This week I want you to notice how many times are you getting drawn into that individual contributor role? Where are you stuck doing the thing?