Defining the Future
Together.

Until last week, I’ve been posting on LinkedIn every day for months. Most days I actually had something worth saying. But "most days" isn't "every day," and that gap is where the problem comes from. On the days I didn't have anything, I posted anyway, because I told myself consistency mattered. Nobody cares about, I mean engages with, those posts. And why should they? If I didn't feel I needed to share something, why should anybody want to read it? But rest assured, I'm feeling something writing this! More on this powerful topic down below.

We all come to a point in our life where we have to make a difficult decision. That's even more true for those of us who lead. Personally, I had to make one of those decisions today, and to say it was challenging is a serious understatement. But I did it, and while I'm sure there are things I can improve, I'm feeling ok with how I handled it.

So I thought a good way to close the loop for myself on this particular tough choice was sharing with you the approach I took. I hope that you get some insights from it when handling your own tough calls.

Every client we have can now generate five versions of anything in an afternoon. They have the same tools we have, the same tutorials and the same AI subscriptions. What they don't have is someone willing to look at what's possible, tell them what's actually right for them, and be honest when the answer isn't what they were hoping for. So when clients know what they can do, our value is in knowing what they should do.

Most of us have had this thought over the past year. Why are we paying for this tool when we could just build it ourselves? Price increases from Harvest have amplified this idea. And since the old challenges of rolling our own products don't mean months of dev time and a maintenance expense anymore, it's a little more appealing. AI coding tools can create a working internal tool in days instead of months. So what should we do? And what are we missing?

Nobody sits down one day and decides to give up on their agency's vision. It happens by attrition. A slow client this month. A payroll that's tighter than usual. A decision you make because you need the cash, not because it's a fit. None of it feels like a decision you’re making. It just feels like getting through the week. Then a year goes by, and the agency feels off.

Each of us has a client story. The unreasonable expectations, disappearing for a month to show up asking where the work is or bringing in their own designs they had their friend put together. But after enough of those stories, a pattern shows up. Difficult clients aren't difficult for the hell of it. Theres a pattern. A small number of repeatable types, and each one has a root cause that has nothing to do with us.  Once we can name the pattern, we stop reacting emotionally and start responding systematically.